THE SANCTUARY SUITE

Sweden seems to be filled with good psychedelic music. Actually I think that the best psychedelic music comes from Sweden. I think that INFRA and The SPACIOUS MIND are in the forefront in this genre. CAULDRON is hailing from the north of Sweden, from a place called Lövånger.

The music is much in the same vein as their fellow countrymen The SPACIOUS MIND or some tracks from the first album by the legendary Swedish band TRÄD, GRÄS OCH STENAR. It's dreamy, spacey, slowly progressing and beautiful.

On the first part of the first song "The Sea / The Road" you can hear the sea rolling against the seashores and the seabirds screams in the sky. The second part takes us to the road, which is very beautiful, and it has got harmonica among other instruments.

The second song is called "The Cathedral" and it's got what we in Sweden call a "Bordun" tone. A "Bordun" tone is an underlying tone that is played in the same key throughout the whole song. I think that the tone is played on a Pump organ. At the end of the song there's a Sitar playing an eastern inspired melody.

On the third song they take us to "The City". The main part of the melody in this one is played on what I think is a Sitar. The last track is "The East / The Dream / The Bliss". The first part has a "Bordun" tone again with a Sitar playing over it. On the second and the third part the "Bordun" tone is still present, but now there's a trumpet and a saxophone taking over the leading melody.

To be honest this isn't an album I will listen to that often. But if you're really into progressive psychedelic music, I think there's a chance that you might like this album, cause it's actually high-class psychedelic.

Now I must tell you that every now and then a real doozie hits my stereo where both my cat and I are literally flattened in our tracks. CAULDRON's "The Sanctuary Suite" bubbles over with plenty of psychy progressive moments with heavy (fuzzy) guitar solos, grand spacey keyboard atmospheres, sitar laden moments..all cleverly interwoven. CAULDRON is a 2 man show comprised of 2 lads from Sweden's "The SPACIOUS MINDS", Jens (keyboardist) and Arne who contributes the lovely guitar, bass and sitar.

"The Sanctuary Suite" is made up of 4 very different yet interrelated songs covering a nice range of moods and atmospheres. But be warned my children, this album will almost certainly drive your friends and family members (including your parental units) away from your residence.. or at least your stereo receiver. I love the wall of sound these guys create and the wide range of instrumentation and clever songs make this album absolutely indispensable in ones collection.

This musical project called Cauldron brings us four ambient like tracks. "The Sea / The Road" opens the album with aural landscape with whale voices and deep sound textures. Later a bluesy solo guitar joins the sound wall. With the ethereal synths appearing later, the music reminds slightly later Pink Floyd or some kind of new age music. I have to admit, though this sounds pretty, the album appears however quite boring. The guitar solos are not very interesting, just bluesy pickings stretched too long considering their content. As the guitar vanishes on the first track, there are some subtle noises introduced to the aural realm. When the guitar later returns, it brings bass, some synths, accordion and some mechanical rhythms within its wake. I must admit that this change does not alter the song finding more interesting or mystical straits. As the sea soundscapes dissolve, the rest of the track is sadly very boring. "The Cathedral" begins with a low bass drone and the same bluesy solo guitar. There's also soloing with very bad sounding modern synth sounds. After few minutes there's a monotonous beating added as a rhythm element. Almost nothing happens during this track, but there are some pretty sitar chords in the end of it. "The City" has a layer of church bells and bass pulses, upon which the sitar plays. That instrument sounds very nice, and I would have appreciated this record much more if it would have replaced the boring electric guitar, and that the poor sounding synths would have been omitted. Sadly they try to haunt also this track in the middle of it. "The East / The Dream / The Bliss" begins again with similar sitar picking as previous track, this time the church bells are just replaced with a waving low synth sound. For next ten minutes, there will not be any evens in this tune, until the sitar fades away after ten minutes, and is replaced with trumpet.

I was disappointment by this album, as the minimalist elements which build it weren't very pleasing in my opinion. I would suggest this record for fans of eventless ambient music. The other player Jens has been part of a Swedish psychedelic band The Spacious Mind, which I would recommend getting familiarized rather than this band.