TAROT, PART I

I was certain Magick Brother & Mystic Sister were one and done and have disappeared. I'm glad to see that wasn't the truth. I know COVID greatly affected many bands, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister included. It also seems they went through a lineup change, with a new drummer and flautist Maya Fernandez listed now as a guest. Eva Muntada and Xavi Sandoval are still there. It's 2024 and their second album Tarot Part I is nothing short of a masterpiece! They pretty much dropped much of the Canterbury leanings of their debut for a much more psych album (but the prog elements are still there). It's not as jazzy as their debut either. But that doesn't matter, what they did is take that psych and prog sound to the next level, with a more pastoral and frequently spacy approach than before. Tarot Part I is simply some of the finest modern-day psych music I have ever heard! I could even imagine those who grew up in the 1960s appreciating this. "The Fool" has some really nice use of vocoder, which is unusual for psych, but it goes great with the nice vocals. "The High Priestess" is more in the psychedelic folk vein, largely acoustic. "Battle of Evermore" from Zeppelin is what this song reminds me of. Of course you don't have Robert Plant with Sandy Denny, but you do have the nice ethereal vocals from Eva Muntada. "The Emperor" has that same vibe as the 1967 Elektra album The Zodiac - Cosmic Sounds. It even has similar spoken dialog. "The Hermit" has that strange ethereal vocal in a psych setting, while "The Wheel of Fortune" starts off a bit on the folk side, but then gets proggy at the end with a dramatic Mellotron passage. So, while I don't get much of a Soft Machine vibe this time around, the occasional reminders of The Zodiac - Cosmic Sounds, acoustic Zeppelin, Ultimate Spinach (particularly "Pamela" from their self-entitled debut), and psych in general, is what I do notice. There is that MB&MS style, most particularly with Eva Muntada who does actual singing, but still does her ethereal wordless voices as well.

I hope the second installment isn't too far away. If the material on this first installment is anything to go by, I hope Tarot Part II is just as mind-blowing. They really perfected that wonderful psych sound I've been looking for. There really isn't anything to find fault of the album. I simply had to point out the Canterbury style was toned down quite a bit, but that doesn't matter when the music is this good! I really think this is a true masterpiece that everyone should check out!