AMPLIFEEDING FYREWARMTOUCH

AMONULLUNOMA - Amplifeeding Fyrewarmtouch (1994)

Underground band from Belfast in the early 90's. The band was primarly a spacejazz jam outfit in the Gong vein but the sole album reflects some classic symphonic prog influences as well, ranging from Yes to early Genesis.

The most spacey and adventurous moments evoke Gong and late 70's Steve Hillage works. The band recorded their sole album in pure analog and released it on tape and vinyl only.

All the musicians are good, only the drummer's play doesn't sound as "vintage" as the others but remains decent anyway.

The guitar has a slight heavy edge but not too much fortunatly while the keyboard's excellent using cosmic sound similar to Gong Tim Blake's works.

The bass player has a nice big and aerial sound reminding of Ye's Fragile period.

All that create a pleasant mixture that is quite impressive for such an underground and obscure band. I had the chance to put the hand on an original pure analog tape (thanks to G Fox Noon) which sounds very good, a very rare and appreciable privilege in a cold digital world!

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AMONULLUNOMA are an obscure short-lived band from Ireland who produced one album in 1994, released on cassette and vinyl. They provide some kind of space rock with a jazz/fusion touch, sometimes similar to the Gong family or Ozric Tentacles ... and the given material proves them way more than only technically skilled musicians. What makes it tricky are the entertaining arrangements, yeah really! Speaking of six songs, some of them are reaching the ten minute mark, this is basically instrumental, vocals are rare as usual, regarding such genre bands.

Neon Sox sounds like Niall Hone (Hawkwind) is contributing here, reminiscent to his former band Tribe Of Cro though. They offer a nice groove forced by the solid rhythm branch, consisting of drummer Grant Allardyce and Simon Young (bass). The main attraction however is the synth and guitar interaction overall ... at best to follow during a pleasant cosmic interlude. Mike McCullough on the synths additionally imitates some sparkling xylophone impressions - definitely inspired. Elephant In A Bun Parlour shows a more jazzy orientation with xylophone reference again ... and including one of the rare contributions by trumpet player Mac Seain.

City Of Ember is a more complex thing spiked with changing time signatures, weird hallucinatory effects and intensive dub drenched moments where - according to the song title - More Cheese Please probably shows them on a humoristic way. Less challenging, but definitely not cheesy anyhow. The Gong inspired You And All You See And Do bears a charming vocal dominated part plus a nice spacey outro which leads into the final Chronic Utopia where they are jamming wonderfully relaxed towards the end.

Another real treasure which hit me recently, probably buried somewhere in a cellar or in the attic for a bunch of years to be re-discovered - fortunately. The cosmic synths are really attractive and Jonnie Rice's guitar varies from fusion to space and heavy riffing - excellent! Now if you want to check out the songs, they are offered for streaming on 'www.thesingularity.co.uk/?page=collaborations'. Sound quality is quite good, but I'm sure some improvement is possible nevertheless - so hopefully this stuff will be re-issued sooner or later. For fans of the aforementioned bands at least it's definitely worth it to ask and to wait for.