Always August - 1987 - Largeness With (w)Holes

Always August

1987

Largeness With (w)Holes

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01. Mass Man 6:30

02. Watton's Bluff 4:30

03. Alien-Nation 3:20

04. In The Dark 4:53

05. Krypto 3:05

06. About Time 7:20

07. Rahsaan Rollin' Cat 4:05

08. It's A Wheel 5:01

Bass – Tim Harding (2)

Congas – Splash Mathews

Drums – Jeff Douglas

Guitar – Lee West (2)

Guitar, Voice – John Kiefer

Saxophone, Bass, Recorder – Tom Wall

Trombone – Brian Zabriskie

Trumpet, Synthesizer, Keyboards, Flugelhorn – Jon Mela

Violin – Steve Gutowski

On their second release, this Virginia-based nonet continues to explore a genre that hip '70s rock-crits pejoratively dubbed jazz-rock. But fear not, this is no Berklee-bred BS&T chops-arama: it's more heady, swirling, quietly funkified stuff that only occasionally commands your attention. The problem is some of the instrumental passages are just plain boring, meandering when they should be stomping. Still, there's enough interesting stuff here ("Krypto" and "Rahsaan Rollin' Cat"), but as for this bag, it's definitely mixed.

Very much underrated mid 80s psych rock. Not too many 80s trappings here, the playing is often quiet loose and free-form...not overly-produced. The opener Mass Man, is probably my least favourite track on the album, it's more pop-funk than the rest...so it only gets better from here, imho. Walton's Bluff is an excellent loose psych jam with violin. Into the Dark, is a very fine track...gives me the feeling of staggering back home from some random nightclub at 3am. About Time, is another fine track. These guys were obviously inspired by 60s West Coast psych, Quicksilver, It's A Beautiful Day et al. But not to such an extent that it prevented them from developing their own style or merely being copycats. There's some horns, and a slight funk undercurrent going on. Normally horn rock is not to my tastes, but they fuse it well with their psychie guitar noodlings, and plenty of violin. Hopefully these guys will be discovered one day, they're well worth a listen! :-)

Every album these guys put out was good, and this might very well be the best. These guys are like something straight out of 1972 and they have some great spaced out tunes with a real Grateful Dead kind of groove about them. Yup it's a fine thing.

Aaaaaaaaahhh, the SST label.. The best years of our lives, right ?

Always August - 1986 - Black Pyramid

Always August

1986

Black Pyramid

01. Freedom Flight 5:00

02. Interrogation 3:37

03. Pan's Lament 3:35

04. Swim With Me 6:27

05. Spacin' Out 4:20

06. Oh My Mind 4:34

07. Soweto 3:45

08. Half The Time 10:53

Banjo – Bruce Blizzard (tracks: A3)

Bass, Vocals, Shakuhachi, Flute, Percussion – Tim Harding

Drums, Percussion, Xylophone, Vocals – Jeff Douglas

Guitar, Vocals, Kalimba, Percussion – John Kiefer

Guitar, Vocals, Panpipes, Percussion – Lee West

Trumpet – John Mela (tracks: A1, B3)

These guys were something special, it's just to bad no one ever noticed. Great psych rock space trips along the lines of The Meat Puppets at their best, and of course The Grateful Dead. These guys had a horn section as well, but this their debut is the most straight forward of their three recordings.

Somehow most 80s psychedelia lacks the originality of previous decades and the clarity of more professional bands which came out later. Always August manage to surpass one of these expectations in that their music is original enough with good use of several instruments, creating an original psychedelic atmosphere.

However, they do not manage to execute their ideas with the rigor required. One of the most important reasons is that the vocals are quite mediocre, often drawing the attention away from the good bits. Moreover, it sounds as if musicians are not able to play in synchrony, especially in the most improvised parts. This may have been alright, if the presumption is that this is a DIY, amateurish affort. It is quite clear though that the intention is to play in tune or professionally.

If you're not afraid of psychedelic rock with jazzy influences and if you're not put off by lo-fi production, you're listening to this LP. The four guys from Richmond, Virginia, play music in the mid-eighties that could actually date from the late sixties. There is little or nothing melodic here, however. One orientates oneself audibly to the experimentalists of the flower power era. I can imagine that a moderate Captain Beefheart fan might enjoy this music.

Personally, I find the music quite exhausting, but at the time I definitely expected more psy-rock and less folk/jazz. It goes without saying that the band had no chance of success in the mass market with this music in the mid-eighties. So it's not surprising that the band broke up again after almost 3 years.