- MicroWhen -

1997EV  - Microwhen
(Trasponsonic      - 2000)  

It's always a feeling of rapture when you come across a band you never even have heard the name of before and they flat out blow you away. That's exactly what happens when the sounds of the loud instrumental "Sleepmydecibel" from 1997EV's (debut?) album "Microwhen" crashes through the speakers with uncontrollable energy and more brainscrambling guitar layers than you can count to. OK, the rest of the record is not of the same mind-throbbing quality but it is still the feeling of excitement that is dominant when the whole thing ends after 42 minutes. But let us get back to the beginning again. The mammoth opener "Psyco Shelter Fast Home" is an energetically guitar clattering epic with drowsy corrupted vocals taking us through a tunnel of auraltrauma. "Westlake" reveals a spacier stretched out sound with repetitious electronics closely knit together with an amazingly densebass-line and mantra-like rumbles about the darkest and most despairing place you can imagine. That one leaves for the beauty of the acoustic guitar-driven lava-flow of "Eonage" which like a few other tracks on"Microwhen" brings us quite close to familiar but equally fascinating Krautrock territories.

"Aldebaran65" is the just over 15 minutes long stunning closer where we find 1997EV in slithering, and spiralling guitar terrain surrounded by intergalactic electro-excursions of highest possible calibre. It’s an obscure psychedelic journey which causes hallucinations in the same mode as Bardo Pond so successfully did on Drunken Fish's legendary "Harmony Of Spheres" box set. Perfect ending for a nearly perfect album. For ordering details send a few notes to algol@macomer.net.

Author: Mats Gustafsson

The Broken Face Issue #9