I WASH MY SOUL IN THE STREAM OF INFINITY

During the last couple of decades, we, here in Europe, have had an underground surge of bands trying to conjure up the majestic fire breathing Krautrock of the past. Bands like Øresund Space Collective, Electric Orange, The Spacious Mind, Papir and My Brother the Wind all fit into this newly found love of free structured psychedelic music that takes its inspiration from the more esoteric of 1970s bands. I guess it is all down to one's tastes, but I find myself far more enticed, persuaded and wet in the trouser-department listening to the aforementioned acts, than I do with a lot of the current American psych bands, which rely heavily on metal, sludge and slow lethargic song structures. Somehow they feel too rigid for my tastes.

Another way of illustrating the massive leap there is between these two ocean-parted psych deliverers, try imagining these acts as kite flyers. Big yellow butterfly coloured kites swooping around in the skies. If the American kites are recognizable by the controlled atmosphere - the carefully thought out placement, where the wind is in your favour and you have just about everything under control, - then these European acts are the direct opposites. My Brother the Wind's music is like flying a kite in the heart of the city, where buildings upon buildings continue to add unnatural corridors for the wind to grow wild and increasingly unstable. Then the music is ready to start.

I Wash My Soul In The Stream Of Infinity is one of those special albums, where this old trait of Krautrock seems to reach that incomprehensible level of flow. It is like flying a kite in a storm. Take the first track here, that without warning catapults itself into a high powered electric vortex with huge bursts of fiery guitar, pulsating organs and a hypnotic rhythm section that propels this magnificent excursion forward like a regular YIIIIHAAAAW space wagon. What takes this one to another level altogether is when the mood quiets down, and the wind suddenly gets audible through a series of ghost-like mellotron sweeps, that gives this listener goosebumps on the insides of his arms.

One of my favourite things about this second album is the diversity it holds. Unlike a lot of these modern day space rock flights, you have soft and mellow psychedelically tinged sections often recalling the great Indian inspiration going back into the end of the 60s - branching out in a series of stylistically enhanced groupings such as Indian folk rock, Raga-like jamming and the devotional yogi type blend one could find in the likes of Popol Vuh. It's the latter here that My Brother the Wind wields, and to tell you the truth, I have never ever come across any band, other than Popol Vuh that is, who were able to play this kind of music successfully. These are slow acoustically submersed endeavours, with lots of Eastern flavoured phrasings and the odd break away electric guitar solos, that shoot you out into the starry skies without any need of a kite.

Finishing the album off, we have the title track that again shows another side of this outfit, with its fluffy and soothing texture. It laps up against you like tiny waves in the bathtub lulling you into these beautiful guitar filled dreams with smooth yearning notes - almost telling you that it is about to end - feeling much like a slow heartfelt epilogue of the album.

This is, along with Æthenor's latest, my pick for album of the year 2011. It takes the old ideas of the early Krautrock scene - y'know the idea that music can achieve artistic merit without having to think about it for days on end making it into a building project, - but alternatively relying on what the feel of the moment is giving off at any given time during recording. Just like CAN did a couple of decades back - My Brother the Wind bring the idea of instant song writing to the fore, with but the odd chance of sprucing the thing up afterwards by adding a whiff of sweet mellotron.

It's all based around certain guitar riffs, that all of a suddenly behave like those wild and frantic kites, that I was on about before - they suddenly gain altitude and transform into magnificent gliding birds of sound swooping up and down with great elegance and poise - manifesting themselves in the instruments around them - taking every little part of the music on an astonishing ride up there among the feathered creatures. 4.5 stars.

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