Ralph Lundsten may have done many wonderful thinks during his slightly odd lifetime (including that picture above) but this Swedish maker of space noise musical instruments is currently getting in our playlist thanks to a re-issue of the sci-fi prog track Horrorscope on Red Hook.

Jah Wobbles bad trips all sounded like this.

Ralph Lundsten and the Andromeda All Stars – Horrorscope

Starting with the atmospheric monsters, the hypnotic horror builds Mary Shelley’s analogue monster from the stolen buried body parts of Africa Bambaataa and The Emperor Machine to unleashes it roaring into the jungle to terrify the natives.

Don’t run too far though, for something else awaits….

Liars Liars Liars album has been leaked in low quality form for a month or so now. It sent 1jg into a state of petrified shock on first listening, by the mere fact it dared to venture into a territory known as pop.

Drums Not Dead carried drum on a Witch’s broom powered by My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts abstraction from the obvious, into the woods it left drum on its own with the whisperers.

Liars takes drum, and brings it inside your cottage, gives it some tea and cake, and sings it a few tunes. After all, who could leave poor drum so frightened for so long?

It signifies a band enjoying being in the old fashioned sense of the word – a band.

A baptism and rebirth, this is a born again band, wash away the old, swimming down the river, catch the golden barge… pondering this transformation, and moving on.

Liars features its fair share of Mary Chain/Spacemen 3 shoegaze, some Helios Creed laden angry Silver Apples, stomping 13th Floor Elevators and a continuation of ‘It Fit When I Was A Kid’ some beautifully unsettling song-writing to rival early Mercury Rev.

‘They were so wrong’ wore its Neubauten credentials on its vandalized sleeve while Liars makes tea with English industrial heritage of Sheffield and Coum Transmissions, and apple pie with Oneida‘s recipe of Pebbles/Nuggets garage rock drenched psychedelia.

So what songs do you sing us dear Liars?

After our tea and cake we read the leaves, ready to begin our baptism on Clear Island….

Liars – Clear Island

Clear Island has occupants. You can see in there eyes, they are not like you. This is the end of the river in some heart of darkness, and the residents are in awe of their leader.

You can hear the them chant for you to save them, but really you just want to join them. Fallen from grace master of puppets Gary Glitter pulls the strings as the chanting builds to a sacrifice. Questions flash though your mind, is this sanity? does it make sense? are these means acceptable, but by the end of the rising Chrome guitar all your questions are answered – fancy thinking the Beast was something you could hunt and kill! You knew, didn’t you? I’m part of you? Close, close, close! as your dragged down to the water and baptized by the glam stomp of Clear Island.

20jfg cry out ‘We’ve got to have rules and obey them. After all, we’re not savages. We’re English, and the English are best at everything!’ but rules are unimportant.

Until his hand touched your head you never new you’d been born.

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with prog Ralph Lundsten