MP3: The Spacious Mind - Rider of the woodlands
Unless I told you (as I'm doing now) that The Spacious Mind was directly related to Säkert! (see yesterday's post), there's little chance you would make the connection on your own. Without reading the liner notes, that is. Henrik Oja, the man who produced and engineered the Säkert! album, is also one of the main creative forces behind Umeå-based psych-rockers The Spacious Mind. The band has been quietly releasing album after album since 1993 and I think that "Gentle path highway" is something like their 7th official CD release overall (they've also released plenty of CDRs and other errata, as you can see here). I enjoyed their last disc "Rotvälta" quite a bit, but it's six-part, hour-long jam was not the sort of thing I could just pop in the stereo on a whim. Not that the new one is all that different - it's still full of extended psych/folk improv sessions that harken back to Swedish pioneers such as Harvester, Parsson Sound and Trad, Gras och Stenar. The difference is that I immediately got into this new record and its shorter, more readily digestible pieces, especially the first track "Rider of the woodlands" which I've posted today. It's a long dirge based on a single looping and echoing guitar figure that slowly morphs and is built upon over the course of it's 17 minute length. That might seem like an awful long time, but the repeativeness sucks you in. Unfortunately, I suspect that most casual Säkert! fans won't be able to get into this and that's a shame. Open your miiiinds people!
The Spacious Mind - Rider of the woodlands