SUNWATCHERS (US) + GEOFF LEIGH (UK, Henry Cow/Slap Happy) & MAKOTO KAWABATA (JP, Acid Mothers Temple) + I.R.K.

SUNWATCHERS
Brooklyn avant-psych/rock/jazz ensemble Sunwatchers are a distorted prism to so many past greats. Reminiscent of Ethiopiques, John Handy Band, Terry Riley, Art Ensemble meets Laddio Bolocko…Forever swirling saxophone blended belly to belly with elastic guitar and tin foil thin phin (a thai instrument not unlike an electrified tenor guitar or sitar). A whirlpool of repetitious interpretations. Militaristic marches ascend into meditations. Their music map out great pyramids and deep buried labyrinths. They are massive. They are leviathans. Their second full lenth “II” will be released on February 2nd, 2018 via Chicago’s Trouble In Mind Records. The new album from this New York ensemble simmers with white hot intensity and righteous ferocity, firing off six tracks of avant-jazz, punk, psychedelia, Ethio-jazz and desert blues that are joyous, chaotic, mystical elegies to modern sound.

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“…a James Brown rave-up run through Hawkwind’s space-rock machine.” – NPR Music

“Sunwatchers, conjure freewheeling soundscapes of psych-jazz, drone, and sax-punk that transport the listener to fantastical, far-out worlds of sonorous noise.” – SPIN

[From the band:] Albert Ayler — precious spiritual and sonic touchstone of ours to the degree that we named our band after one of his weirder totems — proclaimed it famously, affirmatively and with well-earned intelligence: MUSIC IS THE HEALING FORCE OF THE UNIVERSE. We believe this and preach this and do what we can to live this, but we understand that, now, amid our wrongheaded fascist tailspin, direct action is needed. We are musicians, and we will leave political specifics to those more qualified than we are. All the time and energy and passion we can muster we dedicate to writing, performing, recording and releasing music: instrumental music, released from the tyranny of semantics into the freedom and hopefulness of universality-of-connection. We thusly realize the need to become overt about our own intentions and our own mores; without the ease and accessibility of direct language, the onus is on us to express our principles in other ways.[…] We are leftists; across the spectrum, yes — abolitionist syndicalist; democratic socialist; antiviolent-resistance advocate; horrified father with a sad eye for his child to the imperiled future — but leftists, all, and we feel that human existence is endangered by capitalism and its inexorably violent, exploitative and objectively harrowing means, methods and endgames. We have sensed this danger since well before the idiot fascistTrump and his confederacy of gangster anarcho-capitalists and racist-activists assumed control and unfurled their sloppy and lethal intent across the governance of the First World. We felt this before racist groups — paramilitary foot-soldiers of Capitalism, knowingly or unawares — were emboldened by our clown-mouthed president to make their violently bigoted intentionality overt and head-breaking as opposed to sublimated, coiled and altogether dominant, nonetheless. […] Enough of this. We hope you dig the sounds; we worked really hard on them. It also needs to be said that we nearly named this record “LET’S HAVE SOME FUN!!!” because, yeh, we like that too. But, as our radical scuzz-punk forbears No Trend once declared in seething voices indignant, drug-strangled and wholly pubescent:
IF YOU STAND FOR NOTHING YOU’LL FALL FOR ANYTHING!
LOVE AND RESPECT — JMM, JDT, JLR, PNK

by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)

Few bands offer as immersive a psychedelic journey as Brooklyn’s experimental wanderers Sunwatchers. The instrumental quartet’s cosmic boogie is both sprawling and refined, a visionary sound that speaks volumes without the need for vocals. Set to release their new album, II, on February 2nd via Trouble In Mind Records (Doug Tuttle, The Paperhead, Rays), the record is a rejuvenating experience of caterwauling saxophone, shuffling rhythms, Eastern influenced guitars, phins, synths, violas, and beyond. It’s a step out of this planet and into the next realm, but a beacon of light for our reality as well. Their mission statement reads, “Sunwatchers stand in solidarity with the dispossessed, improverished, and embattled people of the world” and the band are opening minds every step of the way.

“Nose Beers,” the opening track from their sophomore record envelops right from the start, bursting to life in muted colors and dazzlingly jazzy drum patterns. Jason Robira’s loose rhythms glide in a free form with Peter Kerlin’s deep grooving bass lines, setting the backdrop for the band’s guitars, saxophones, and Eastern modalities to come alive in sprightly fashion, locked into the beat’s nimble backbone and sprawling in all directions from there. If “music is the healing force of the universe” as they believe (and we do too), then Sunwatchers are our spiritual guides, leading us into the void and back out toward a better future.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/sunwatchers/
Tweets by SunwatchersBand
https://sunwatchers.bandcamp.com/

Videos:
https://vimeo.com/163694598

GEOFF LEIGH (UK) & MAKOTO KAWABATA (JP, Acid Mothers Temple)

Geoff Leigh is een jazz en progressive rock muzikant, het beste bekend van zijn werk met Henry Cow in de vroegere jaren ’70, maar ook aan andere bands van de label Virgin, waaronder Hatfield And The North en Slapp Happy. Over de jaren heen heeft hij veelal optreden in Europa en daarbuiten, als solo artiest, maar ook als bandlid van FAUST, Henry Cow, Porcupine Tree, Nurse With Wound, Univers Zero, Aksak Maboul, Acid Mothers Temple, en met muzikanten als Max Manac’h, Mitsuru Tabata, Tatsuya Yoshida, Aogu Tanimoto, Kazuto Shimizu, Filippo Opaki, Yumi Hara, Sawada, Anthony Donovan, Uwe Bastianson (Stadtfischflex), Magnus Alexanderson, Adriano Lanzi, Tim Bowness, en Nana Tsiboe. Momenteel is hij onderdeel van Murmurists, The Warrior Squares, Jump For Joy (met bandleden van FAUST en Henry Cow), en The Artaud Beats.

Makoto Kawabata is een gitarist een multi-instrumentalist, en bandleider van de psychedelische rock band Acid Mothers Temple. Terwijl hij het beste bekend is voor zijn speed guru gitaar acties in Acid Mothers Temple, is hij ook de uitvinder van zijn eigen extatische gitaar drone met behulp van buiten en glissando technieken. Kawabata begon voor het eerst met uitbrengen van werken voor electronische en eigengemaakte instrumenten in 1978. Sindsdien is hij behoorlijk actief geweest, wat niet echt bij te houden is. Hij heeft diverse units gestart, heeft behoorlijk wat albums op diverse labels over de gehele wereld uitgebracht, en heeft flink gaan getourd in Europa, de Verenigde Staten en Azie. Hij heeft samengewerkt en opgetreden met psychedelische bedenkers als Gong, Guru Guru, Silver Apples, Nik Turner, Damo Suzuki, Träd Gräs och Stenar, met occitanische tradmuzikanten uit Zuid-Frankrijk, waaronder Rosina de Peira, Marc Perrone, Andre Minvielle, Beatritz en een ontelbaar aantal andere sessies verspreid over alle muziekgenres.

Geoff Leigh & Makoto Kawabata from Stichting Centrum on Vimeo.

https://geoffleigh.bandcamp.com/album/into-the-fire
https://www.facebook.com/pg/IntoTheFire2018/

I.R.K.

“What the hell is the intergalactic rock korporation?”
” “Some of them are your fans, Miss”
They turn on, she thought, to see me.
And I am always there.
“You don’t like them,” Jason said.
“They’re dumb,” Heather grunted.
“What can you tell me in five seconds that I don’t already know?” he said sharply. “Tell me now.”
“No,” the Impossible Rod King said. “I’m your number one paramour.”
“I never have and never will disappoint my fans.”
How do I make her understand? he asked himself savagely, grinding his teeth together, nearly biting off a silver filling.
He hated that sensation: grinding off a piece of filling.
Destroying his own body, impotently.
Can’t she see that my knowledge of everything about her means something important? he asked himself.