missive 300
01-12-2011
Kool-Aid (global tyranny) ’s/t’ (agitated). Fancy a little zonked out freakishly tripadelic white out psych voodoo that‘s guaranteed to turn your mind inside out amid an hallucinogenic rush of apocalyptic mantras, mind controlling Dadaist dialects, stoned out cosmic hyper gliding and out there bliss kissed molten hot big bearded beatnik rumbles then the self titled Kool-Aid (global tyranny) multi coloured mojo bag may be just what the fried fuzz doctor ordered. Limited to just 500 vinyl copies that each arrive housed in trippy eye catching jackets replete with an accompanying CD of said same wax tracks though slightly tinkered for all you heathens who debunked your turntables in the last great vinyl is dead debacle with the first 100 copies sporting an additional ‘acid mix’ tape of lysergic lovelies rescued from their collective record bag - this may well be the most off radar release you‘ve heard all year.

So little is known about these impishly mysterious psyched out overlords that rumour has it that the dudes up at Agitated records haven’t a clue who they are having found themselves coerced and bullied by way of cryptic notes and the occasional arrival of the odd unsolicited CD into passing up groove space on their celebrated record store day 12 inch ‘I’m so convoluted’ earlier this year to fit alongside Carlton Melton, the Heads and the much admired around these here parts Mugstar the official debut release appearance of Koolaid courtesy of the frankly mind wiring mutant psych disco stomp that was their version of Daft Punk’s ’da funk’ (see http://www.losingtoday.com/tales.php?id=359).

That said the ‘koolaid (global tyranny)’ set isn’t new to these pages, as it happens we’ve had in our possession an intended for release CD of this set for some ten years now which for reasons unknown got lost, forgotten and abandoned by its authors (apparently there were utterances among the collective that the time just wasn’t right and that the public just weren’t ready, a general fear that said aural artefact would cause heads and minds alike to fry and implode presided) only to be recently exhumed, recalibrated, rephrased and phazed for a new generation of fried floppy fringed children bloated on a want for something more than plastic pop. That said the more keen eyed among you may even recall us mentioning it in passing at the time (it did - to add to the intrigue and clue forming - actually appear in print within the hard copy version of Losing Today) - though beyond that we’ve been sworn not to reveal their identities other than to say they reside somewhere in the northern hemisphere located on the 53˚ longitudinal axis.

Appealing as much to admirers of the recorded wares of the important, trensmat and beta lactam ring imprints (and here we are thinking stuff like Seven that Spells, Skull Defekts, Grails, Master Musicians of the Bukkake et al) as those hippy heads turned on by the pages of Shindig and once upon a time (as was) Ptolemaic Terrascope, ’koolaid (global tyranny)’ is a formidable set comprised of 4 hulking opus’ that sound for all the world like some auto piloted Spacemen 3 galactic cruise ship returning from the edges of the cosmic void. Doused in all manner of meditative murmurs, motorik rhythms, cut up samples and wasted fuzz shrilled debris and sprinkled with the rarest essences of magic dust it provides for a colossal and foreboding listening event that finds itself weaving upon an aural axis navigating a terra forming path that shape shifts between the loose generic divides of kraut, drone, psyche and bleached beatnik blues. The set opens with the darkly forbidding ‘18/11’ a parched apocalyptic end of days landscape unfolds as though amid the maddening chime of death’s call some archaic summit presided over by an ‘acid rain’ era Grails and a youthful godspeed you Black Emperor sit morbidly in judgement viewing the carnage before them. The blackened mood soon shifts with the appearance of ‘intercity firm’ - a nose bloodying heads down no nonsense boogie emerges replete with scowling primordial riffage to reveal a free form sun scorching space rocking mother ship. Side two gives hint of a playful and readily more free flowing side to the bands collective psyche ’ritual #3’ providing for a full on 16 minute head trip - chill toned locked grooved crystalline swirls form mind melting arabesque motifs amid a bedrock of hulking head caning percussive loops, throw in some mallowy oceanic mirages that splinter and dissipate to the stoner bleach fuzz hazes and you have yourself something much reminiscent of that transcendental psychotropic lightshow that was Sunray and Sonic Boom’s ’dream-machine’ mind morphing face off. All said its time to fire up a fat one for the best of the set comes with the parting ‘the process’ - a total head fuck of a brutal beatnik inspired head drilling freakout like imagining Blue Cheer and Acid Mothers in a mind lock, this brute comes despatched with all manner of feedback growls and doom dipped sermonising all slavishly wreaking of foreboding whilst fractured and fused by an underlying agitation that boils and scalds to a wasted persona that’s so primitive it comes sporting its own loons and beard to sound as though its just crawled its way out from the dark side of Syd’s frazzled headspace. In short wig flipped freaky boogie for freak beat love children.