Lunar Dunes - Galaxsea

Following on from last night's rather beefy stoner rock and some acoustic-based dark folk, here's something completely different. This is Adam Blake from Cornershop, Transglobal Underground's Hamilton Lee and (not noted from any other band – sorry) Ian Blackaby who've previously released one other album, 2007's From Above, have played with Damo Suzuki and are now here again with Lunar Dunes, an improvisational and free-flowing, and largely instrumentally focused collection that is firmly from the jazz-rock / avant-garde wing of space rock. I'll note hear that while I say 'instrumentally focused', this does feature vocals from Krupa Pattni (also of Transglobal Underground), but those vocals are ones that compliment the music almost as though the voice is an additional instrumentation and it wouldn't be correct, to my ears, to describe these nine tracks as 'songs' – they are beguilingly wispy compositions to which the vocal contribution has a part to play in delivering mood and texture rather than as a recitation of lyrics across the top of the music.

This is another delightful 4Zero Records release – how does Dave Weller keep finding these bands – blissful, tranquil and soothingly smooth sounds with a crystalline quality that slip in and out of differing grooves, switching into Eastern and Oriental notes, sometimes finding a slightly firmer rhythm in the guitar and drums with which to shake-up the albums overarching sense of wistfully exotic flavours. One to relax and drift out with.

http://www.lunardunes.com/