EVERYONE IS EVIL

Another interesting studio-based creation of chance. "Everyone Is Evil" is their 40th (!) album and 23th (!!) studio-based one released in May 2023. They say this was recorded in a fully improvisational style in September 2022. Their impromptu is well renowned already in their previous works, and we wonder what they meant in this title "Everyone Is Evil" under such a tough situation all over the world (esp. in Eastern Europe).

In the beginning "Part 1", quite impressive is brilliant echoic sitar exudation. For such an improvised performance, their colourful sounds are pretty refined and settled. We get veiled in Indo-Raga-ish flavour and grasp massive comfort. The middle part has been quietized and stabilized fully with flexible guitar playings and relaxing drumming / bass footprints. Very surprising and amazing is that every single melody line was played in a complete impromptu manner. We can be immersed in their 'perfectly synchronized and harmonized' playings. It's easily imagined that they played and recorded casually and sincerely. The last phase features a more complicated rhythmic combination and dreamy melodic crystallization but their improvisational sound collective is cool and delightful. "Part 2" full of muddy dissonant music streams suddenly follows the previous tune. The first part of the second movement sounds more improvisational and more dissected for us. And especially so tough and strict. Anyway this atmospheric effect will gradually be moved and developed dramatically. The violent melody-randomizing guitar launcher is quite fantastic. Also good is ethnic oriental texture produced by each instrument (esp. guitars and percussion). So understandable that they have positively introduced such a tribal orientality or ethnicity. There are some monotonous or invariant interludes indeed but their explosive performance sounds cooler, clearer, and more essential. And it's also good that the last part gets more unificated and rhythmically polished. The third term is more stylish and gorgeous along with synthesizer-oriented kaleidoscopic sound illusions. We can guess such a long psychedelic trip would exhaust them all and make their playings and performances repetitive and horizontal, especially in the middle part of this movement. But hey, not bad that their brilliant sound glitters by the synthesizers are magical. We can also mention that simple is good, can't we? (One of the hidden bonus tracks like "End Of The World As You Thought You Knew It" is good as a bluesy space rock brightly with superb flexible guitar lyricality.) The last "Everyone Is Good (Maybe)" gets much more tranquilized and delicious. ELectric guitar-based sticky repetitive sound construction is basically native and soily. But their mysterious melodic simplicity reminds us of their suggestive message 'goodness is not good' ... is this only for me?

Simplification of this spiritual creation might be for the audience on a long trippy trip I imagine?

Back in 2006 I was sent the debut album by Transubstans Records of a new collective of improvisational musicians, Øresund Space Collective, and I said, "It is music to play late at night looking at the stars, letting yourself just drift into the universe of their own creation". The band has always had a flux of members coming in and out, mostly from other well-known Scandinavian bands such as Carpet Knights (SE), Mantric Muse (DK), Bland Bladen (SE), Gas Giant (DK), Hooffoot (SE), First band from Outer Space (SE), Siena Root (SE), My Brother the Wind (SE), Agusa (SE), Tangle Edge (NO), The Univerzals (DK), Papir (DK), Black Moon Circle (NO), and there has been just the one constant, Dr. Space on synths. It is strange to think I reviewed their debut and now here I am listening to their 40th (their 27th studio release), with improvisation and space rock still very much at the core of what they do.

Here we have just four tracks, but the opening title cut is in excess of an hour and there is a total playing time in excess of two hours. What this allows the listener to do is truly get inside the album which was recorded by a few different line-ups with only Dr. Space, Jonathan Segel (violin, guitar), and guitarist Luis Simões credited on all tracks. It is difficult to realise this is improvised music as melodies are repeated, structures and tight arrangements created, and it feels highly orchestrated and rehearsed at times, loose at others, which clearly demonstrates the high understanding they have of each other and what they are aiming to achieve. The music moves in different directions yet is always strongly within space rock, never truly falling into the experimental which is often beloved of improvisors, yet somehow creating music which is cogent and articulate. The rhythm section provides the platform, while guitars/synth/Mellotron/violin all take leads or support the others, and one can only imagine everyone working together in the studio taking their cues and directions with head nods and hand signals. For a piece to work as well as the opener yet be that long is nothing of a huge achievement as the listener never loses interest as it moves us through the universe.

It is an album which any fan of this genre will thoroughly enjoy as Øresund Space Collective show that 40 albums in they are still as exciting and interesting as they have always been.