Monday, time to introduce "Record Of The Week".
Third time around for JESS AND THE ANCIENT ONES (JATAO) on Tune Of The Day as "Record Of The Week", the female fronted finish occult retro rock band with their latest and third release "The Horse and Other Weird Tales", an album that was released last year on Svart Records on December 1st. Busy time when it arrived, all the focus was to sort out all the other releases, so it falled behind a little. Now it has got some air time, been spinning at work, at home, in the car mixed with other new records but I always returned to it and that is a very good sign.
On "The Horse and Other Weird Tales" they continue on the same highway as they painted on "Second Psychedelic Coming: The Aquarius Tapes", but with a mystery trip to the psychedelic side of the sixties, with a more modern view point. The album is very groovy and organic and it's produced a very old fashioned album, 9 tunes and 31 minutes, recorded and mixed together with their live sound engineer.
Jess vocals is absolutely stunning, with high brilliance she dives into the mysterious depths, swirls one on her finger so you get absolutely mesmerize and disappear into the myst. The musical partners she have are amazing to capture the timezone and with a intelligence and accessibility with a lot of variety to keep it interest all the way.
From the opening chords to first sentences in the first tune "Death Is The Doors" the path for this record is set. Intro with a 60's horror movie theme and psychedelic keyboards aka THE DOORS slowly walks to the door and unlocks it and the tune swings to a quicker melody pattern by the rhythm section, catchy and amazing sining by Jess.
"Shining" is a groovy piece, keys is still strong here, catchy chorus and very colourful guitars makes it very hard to sit still.
A groovy bass line opens up the rocker "Your Exploding Heads", still with a 60's touch and a hell of a swing.
One of the albums longest tune, just over 7 minutes "You And Eyes", starts with a powerful soft vocals by Jess and it builds up as long the journey goes, psychedelic keys with smokey distorted guitars makes this a epic piece of music.
The albums shortest tune is up next "Radio Aquarius", ticks in under 2 minutes, radio propaganda with nice background music by the band.
"Return To Hallucinate" is a trippy piece with absolutly stunning vocals performance by Jess, with total control and incredible range she masters with fearless every inch of vocal space in the tune.
"(Here Comes) The Rainbow Mouth" with a great bassline, groovy melody, catchy guitars and of course Jess.
"Minotaure", Jess again, puh, I'm totally blown away here, 60's psychedelic rock with racing key riffs and a bass riff that kills, groovy like a beast.
The album ends with the longest paper back novel "Anyway The Minds Flow" have traces of everything on the album.
The tune references J.D. Salinger’s, "The Catcher In the Rye" and includes audio recordings of Mark Chapman, the man who murdered the late Beatles, John Lennon. Mark Chapman has gone on the record stating that "The Catcher in the Rye" inspired him to kill Lennon. Chapman believed Lennon to be a “phony”, with the song “Imagine” having the line about having no possessions while he himself was a wealthy man. This is a complex subject because John Lennon came from a very meager and humble background in a poor part of Liverpool, England, and as a self-made man he understood the fight to better oneself. “Anyway The Minds Flow” discusses the parallels between reality and what is assumed, and the fine line between the truth and misinterpretation.
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| A lovely red version of the vinyl. |
The summery of this album: A excellent ride into the void of 60's psychedelic occult heavy rock.
Today's tune "You and Eyes", taken from "The Horse and Other Weird Tales", the clip is live at Tombstoned, Kuudes Linja/Helsinki/Finland January 20th 2018, enjoy!
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