DA CAPTAIN TRIPS

Da Captain Trips (a nod to Stephen King's virulent plague) is an instrumental psych jamband from the Piacenza/Lecco region of Italy. They formed in 2009. The current lineup is Riccardo Cavicchia, Federico Chiappa, Tommaso Villa, and Paolo "Apollo" Negri. They have released several full-length albums, a live album, and maintained a good activity of live dates. According to a recent interview with It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine, some of their favorite albums are German: Ash Ra Tempel, Manuel Göttsching discography, Faust, Can, Tangerine Dream, and Klaus Schulze.

Maths of the Elements is an ambitious project that initially reminded me of bands like Djam Karet and Ozric Tentacles with modern production values and great sound, but I suspect there is also an inherent old school appreciation there too. I think there may be a catering to an audience that likes to enjoy a bit of perception-altering from time to time, shroom-rock as a friend referred to it, all instrumental and born of a spirit of improvisations past and present. Art and visuals are a big part of it as well as you can deduce from the amazing cover art. The themes of Maths of the Elements are complex and explained in detail on their Bandcamp page, but basically each track is a study into various theaters of nature (rivers, mountains, oceans, et cetera) and the elements that shape them. An attempt is made to pull the listener into reflection, into an immersion to heighten their awareness of the topic.

The six tracks range from 6 to 10 minutes, and there is not much change-up or diversionary songwriting tendencies once your adventure begins. They generally lock into a groove atop a fat and up-front bass, and they blast off. There are lush keyboard and guitar back-drops, repeating motifs, feisty drumming, and extended, pleasure-inducing solos. I love the "color" of the keyboard sound choices as well as the guitar tones---both nail the pleasure zone in your brain. Well-placed nature recordings help create the imagery and mood. My take is that this is the sound of friends who have jammed and jammed for years on end, who know each other very well. They play off of each other with ease, and they jam with a lot of heart and passion. They also capture a great live sound in this recording. It's not over-produced; it has a pulse. From the mellow meadows to the hard-rocking peaks, everything is beautifully captured and sounds great on headphones.

If spacey and rocking, ethereal instrumental forays are your thing, you should really dig this one. They put a lot of love and care into their artistic presentation with digital, CDs, and special black vinyl releases. Kudos to these guys for maintaining the band they so obviously enjoy, the long friendships and the commitment to keep jamming.