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DREAMCOLOUR

DEEP MAGIC

SEE BELOW FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS…


’solar meditations’ c90 coming soon on not not fun


’soul vibration’ c60 coming soon on dnt records

is tomorrow…

peace
alex

hi everyone,

i’ve launched a new label called ‘deep tapes’, and the first 2 releases are available beginning today!


deep magic – ‘crystal visions’ c60 (deep tapes no.1)
limited to 50 handmade copies with full color artwork
SOLD OUT


deep magic – ‘balance’ c20 (deep tapes no.2)
limited to 20 handmade copies with full color artwork
SOLD OUT

peace
alex
deepmagik.com

Deep Magic is the solo project of Alex Gray, the every instrument he can get his hands on-ist of left coast psychedelic/spiritual/jazz/improv collective Dream Colour. This will be the first upcoming release of his (which he has graciously allowed me to share) and no doubt points to a bright future path of a talented artist from a very promising musician’s collective.

The ethos of this tape is not far off from Alex’s other work; it is most definitely a nod to the cosmos and the intangible kind of “spiritual” ether around us. However, the means of achieving it are much different. Whereas Dream Colour often gets to these ends through communal improvisation, slow crescendos and the often cacophonous blending of horn skronks, tribal percussion and instrument call and response, Deep Magic plows its way to inner harmony with more minimal soundscapes and deep, lulling introspection.

The first side of this c20 starts off somewhere between an organ and a computer, slowly belching out atonal progressions until it reaches a sort of equilibrium with intersecting synth pads playing sustained drones. It feels more like his previous work when you hear the uptempo percussion jump in, but the ryhmtic keyboard lines and repetitive drumming build more of a contemplative soundscape that is content to just let things be rather then constantly moving towards a destination. Distorted voices lend a human element to the milieu before heavy low end sounds draw out the close of this piece.

The low ends continue at the beginning of side b as a similar rythmic line is played out on the keys, propped up by a low volume growling drone. A looped high end note repeatedly treads over the growing synth fuzz, creating the aural illusion of a choir in praise rising up to take center stage. As the end grows closer, heavy droning strings cut through the dense fog of the track before a lonely harmonica signals the end of the tape.

To this listener, the first Deep Magic tape finds a balance between the new age electronic world and that of simpler and more primitive instruments. It is content to provide meditative sound drapes without pushing the listener in any direction, but in no means does it do so with a lack of urgency. The idea is that the futuristic and the primitive can be reconciled. They can work together in the form of music as worship, as this tape certainly displays.

- incomplete tales of several journeys

much love
alex

show tonight at grady’s record refuge

show october 8th at l’keg gallery in l.a…

much love!

deep magic ‘lunar bells’ c40 is in the making right now… it will be coming out in the first batch of tapes by wet merchants. also coming out in the batch is gonna be a chapels tape, a christopher riggs tape… it should be a great batch. henry is the man. support his cause!!

much love, more on this soon.

alex

Dreamcolour positions themselves as a free, spiritual collective that are as much in the space jazz tradition as acidic drone music, without really sounding definitively like anything but themselves. Inner Worship might seem like an ironic title for what is anything but internal: nine players simultaneously going off on drums, synths, saxophone, vocals, viola, guitars, electric, and upright bass. On top of that, the roster also numbers individuals who double-up: “vocals/soul”, “guitar/records”, and “drum/voodoo.”

“Soul” goes without saying. Maybe the “records” are behind those gushing wind sounds, and the “voodoo” is in charge of some of the mind meld that keeps the release an “inner” worship. I’d prefer to imagine this whole album came from someone sticking needles in a doll but more likely, “inner worship” is a good way of describing what nine people praying out-loud sounds like.

Dreamcolour seem to get off most (and getting off is clearly in the cards for music this free) by drifting along without any intentions of hitting that hard, climactic noise Satori. They choose instead to rove from one tinkering experiment into the next as organically as possible, sax grunts and piles of feedback mediating. And when the crew gets really interested in a massive drone or shuddering irresolution, someone tends to come in for the cleanup – the bass clearing swarming ants from a dead fly and scattering them off in every direction with a stolid, pedaled note. That’s the first side, called “Praying”.

If “Praying” comes off uninhibited, the B-side’s “Worshiping” is the somber meditation that inevitably precedes the final tract, “Repenting”. “Worshiping” is not trying to go as many places – where “Praying” asked for something, “Worshiping” is giving itself up into one viscous drone stream, which makes you feel like there’s something indulgent about the opening jam on “Repenting”, where lucid bits of funk and rock come in for the first time. Not for long. Everything we’ve known so far comes apart at the seams and swells into warm synth harmonies. Apparently this is how Dreamcolour remits sin. -impose

“As for this particular victim, it fits right in both with the Stunned and Dreamcolour modes of operation. For those who don’t know from Dreamcolour, this is a pretty mega group of like-minded musical thinkers. Seems like a rotating cast too, pulling anyone in who’s willing to partake in the free gloop of the group, which pulls psychedelic sheets over the eyes of post-Fire jazz squall. Almost like some Alan Silva orchestra or something, only with less virtuosity and thus a more frayed and unexpected sound. Sort of an Arkestra meets LAFMS situation, never ungrooving but rarely just soothing. And at an hour in length there’s plenty of room to slip down into their world.

This is especially the case on the half hour opening, “Praying.” Starting with a clattering and moist opening, the piece glides back and forth from stretched landscapes to bubbling masses of fertile waters. Actually, these distinct parts are quite apparent throughout, the group changing angles with quick flicks of the wrist, a capability aided by Sean McCann’s (that’s right) production, which treats each mode in panoramic color. Actually, the whole Roll Over Rover crew is in here, with Dave “Old Softy” McPeters offering some upright bass and Stewart “Ugly Husbands” Adams on guitar and recorder. Them being alongside fellow explorers Rob Magill, whose saxophone is an important and substantial presence, Natalie Alyse’s vocals, Danny Larussa’s electric bass, Maura on drums and Teddy Skupien on guitar. It’s quite a lineup, and they play together with a surprising delicacy and group interplay. This is no all out cruise fest, but a real group, playing together and off one another in a sort of a careful abandon.

Flip side splits the difference between “Worshiping” and “Repenting,” though with all this prayer and worship I’m not quite sure what there is to repent for other than a swell time had. The former of the two sweeps in blustery style, with Magill’s sax drifting in the wind with Aylerian attack. A real full blown one here, hollowed out like some clay sphere made for dripping richly colored paints into drop by drop. Rainbow spelunking material that starts to gray up as it descends deeper. And then there’s “Repenting,” which burns hot like the magma found underneath. Total grooving, churtlting go of it here, with Magill’s melodic fragments keeping it taught as can be whilet he backing throbs and retracts in superheated tandem, like some head-nodding fusion group. Amazing, and sure to clear out any of the bad karma you’ve built up over the course of the record. Do I sense a Love Supreme arch here? Me thinks me does. And when has that ever been a bad thing?” -ear conditioned nightmare

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