Under the Radar Music: December 2013

News: Nothing new since 2014. Last check: 9/4/23

One of These Days & Thee Heavy Random Tone Colour Lab, a band that is certainly in contention for longest group name, are a new space rock / retro prog band from Spain. Specifically they are from A Coruña, located in the far northwest province of Galicia. Now that blew a cobweb off a brain cell, and sure enough, another space rock band came from the exact same town nearly 20 years ago: Kozmic Muffin. Who remembers them? They were one of the bright lights of the mid 90s psychedelic progressive scene. Not sure if One of These Days has any personal relationship with the group, but obviously the region has a propensity towards space rock acts. And there are some similarities in their music.

File One of These Days into the camp that believes music had no reason to go past 1975. You won't get much of an argument from me on that front. The all-analog instrumentation, composition style, and vinyl-only release - in a gatefold cover with lyrics and recording details of course - all point to 1971. Nektar's Journey to the Centre of the Eye or Pink Floyd's 'Atom Heart Mother' suite will certainly set your expectations correctly. The latter right down to the use of a Euphonium. Other modern day (lol) instrument call-outs include Farfisa Compact Duo, Vox Continental, Hammond Porta B, Minimoog D, fuzz bass, theremin, hurdy-gurdy... oh you get the idea. There is only one track, broken into 4 movements, split evenly across both sides of the vinyl with sub titles such as 'Nexus 2CBeautiful Things (including "Gurls & Chloroform")'. Peter Sinfield will be happy to know his legacy is secured. All the right ingredients are in play, and this is clearly a band with their atom heart in the right place. So it's perfect then? Well, no, but it's a great debut. I think the band could work more on the compositions themselves, and perhaps not rely solely on the same music that was created with these instruments 40 years ago. The beauty of the original early 70s movement is that it was way too short of a time frame to fully explore all the possibilities. And while numerous bands of the last 25 years have tried, there are still millions of possibilities. Especially when you load your studio up with only pre-1976 gear. In fact the biggest surprise came from the sequencer use on the 'Nexus...' track mentioned above - that seemed plucked more from Tangerine Dream's Phaedra rather than Dark Side of the Moon. It provided an excellent contrast to the full band performance and psychedelic guitar soloing. I think it's something Edgar Froese would have enjoyed (back then anyway).

So, in the end, we have a very exciting development. Let's see if they do more with the concept!

12/19/13 (new entry)

Under the Radar Music

Le Porte non Aperte, Italy

Progenesi, Italy

One of These Days & Thee Heavy Random Tone Colour Lab, Spain

Birds and Buildings, USA

Psicomagia, USA

Beyond-O-Matic, USA

Dungen, Sweden

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