SPIRITCZUALIC ENHANCEMENT CENTER – ‘CARPET ALBUM’
Jazz is anathema to countless otherwise eclectically-minded music fans, and perhaps understandably so given the over-sufficiency of hamster-cheeked modality merchants noodling themselves numb at the trad end of the spectrum. Wisely however, outernational collective Spiritczualic Enhancement Center spit in the eye of such tedious virtuosity signaling, opting instead to establish their commune beyond the mainstream’s manicured banks in the lawless hinterlands where dissidence trumps orthodoxy and fusion takes a back seat to fission. The result of multiple recording sessions by an 18-strong cast of conspirators, ‘Carpet Album’ (no, me neither) is the musical equivalent of a fly agaric binge; a multi-tentacled chimera that, despite sporting the speculative friction burns of Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane, actually cleaves closer to krautrock’s serpentine inner spacefaring and the outré œuvre of such contemporary mystics as LCSM, Mansur and The Heliocentrics. Piquant with percolating synth, dub-flecked percussion ricochets, wah-wah guitar spume and aromatic Turk-psych curlicues, this is sonic alchemy of the highest esoteric order; a mind-dilating pleasure cruise to rattle the resolve of the most fervent jazz detractor. Your magic shagpile awaits.
GonzoKaraoke 