Rhythmically Creaming Nathan In America

Nathan is actually an older album, having come out a couple years ago, but I have only had the immense pleasure of swimming in American Cream's Krautrock waters this week. Although they have been around for a decade, Nathan is their debut record (out through Old Blackberry Way), a double LP that is stunning in its brazen experiments, elongated mindbending jams and especially adherence to finding the notches in a droned-out rhythm and staying lodged there for as long as hypnotically possible. A carousel of musicians are involved in this kaleidoscopic revelry – upwards to 24 I am led to believe, from such disparate groups as Marijuana Deathsquads, Polica, Flavor Crystals, Chambermaids, Gospel Gossip and a bunch of bands not mentioned on Sonic Masala before – and holds true to the general aesthetic of an American Cream live show – that is, Nate Nelson is the centrifugal force that various musicians revolve around, at random, and with little warning as to what will be played on the night – a truly intuitive motorik confluence. The hushed murmur/chanted mantras of the vocals and the unhinged sax that wavers in and out of tracks like ‘Don’t Buy It’ just adds to the heart-pounding intensity.

Nathan is a really good album in its own right. What makes Nathan a brilliant album is that this is a somehow structured ensemble improvisational album – with cohesion, a hive-mind mentality and an overarching adherence to a heaving, breathing, rhythmic euphoria, never plateauing, never dying away.

Heavy Gospel

Let's double dip in Minneapolis for some slight psychedelia kicks, whaddaya say?

First up is Heavy Deeds, whose Light Lunch EP came out on Old Blackberry Way Records yesterday. It's decidedly throwback, delving forty years into the past to rake its fingers through the pastoral dirt of the sun-bleached, hypnotic West Coast of the early 1970s. It's clear that the group owe something of a debt to likeminded wanderers such as Galaxie 500, but seeing as Dean Wareham is content to delve into that band's small oeuvre without adding to the legacy, why not give the acolytes a shot at the title? Its a great calling card, an introduction in a candle-lit room, slightly inebriated on the vice of choice, as the sun dives for the horizon. You can get Light Lunch here.

Heavy Deeds - Light Lunch
Heavy Deeds - The Great Believers

We have mentioned Gospel Gossip in the past (here, in fact), yet I wasn't expecting to love their self-titled debut quite as much as I do. Alternating between the pastoral whimsy that permeates Heavy Deeds above, to more jangly pop, to coalescing sheets of distortion and electric squall, all bled through with a warmth and substance that invariably is left behind in favour of stylistic flourishes - I'm surprised Gospel Gossip (also out through Old Blackberry Way) hasn't had more glowing plaudits thrown its way. OK, some songs feel a little open-ended, maybe even undercooked - but as a whole (and in the instance of 'On The Edge' or 'Simpler Times', some bona fide classic pop tunes) this is an incredibly attractive and addictive effort - in the same realm that Rational Academy was in a few years ago before their final, heavier phase (a local reference, I know, but better than the standard "shoegaze Fleetwood Mac" mantras that get used). Listen to two of the tracks below, and buy the vinyl here.