Mirror Mirror’s music is a crypt of mystery and sex, a moist opening on the side of a rock wall, enticing entrance to a cavernous corridor darken illuminated by feeble red candles down which you walk surrounded by cloaked figures, eventually reaching a grotto where naked bodies lie, silver amulets, strange flowers and sharp knives gleaming under the light of the moon which reigns supreme in the centre of the black dome of a sky covered with the medieval script of ancient constellations.

Mirror Mirror are indeed special, they drink from esoteric sources, the pagan drone of psyche folk is brought back and reconfigured to soundtrack ceremonies of quasi-satanic languor, shadows of wild-eyed teenagers rendezvousing on hidden places to beckon forbidden forces, a Goyaesque hallucination, or the sound of Arthur Machen’s twisted scripts. It is beautiful stuff, imagine Deerhunter’s cryptic incantations turned inside out to tell us about those who shan’t be named, those who live in the green outskirts of wild paths, those who play strange music that leads lost children astray, dancing joyous never to be seen again.

Mirror Mirror- The Inward Way Out (Retrotrip)

Mirror Mirror’s debut album, ‘The Society For The Advancement Of Inflammatory Conciousness’ is out now in Cochon records, Half Machine records take care of their releases in the UK, which they will be visiting really soon to play some shows in London, including Upset the Rhythm on the 24th. Magick.

I’ve been hot on the heels of one Mat Colegate, trying to get him to write for us about Magma, alas, he is too busy these days, I imagine engaged in indescribable transactions across the portals of space and time which have been known to occasionally appear in certain back alleys of the Big Smoke, possibly under the shadow of a Hawksmoor Church or the like. All commendable activities which justify his neglect of us, so you will have to do with my inadequate prose when trying to address the topic of one of the greatest bands that ever existed.

French prog gods Magma’s grandiose opus concerns the colonisation of planet Kobaïa by Earthen refugees, as sung in the language from that place. This sort of psychedelic dystopian vision would be sufficient to get the attention of your delusional 20JFG scribes, but it is perhaps anecdotal, marginalia on the sides of an epic scroll crafted with blinding energy. We shall be writing about Magma in the future (or perhaps Mr. Colegate will!), possibly focussing on their earlier more Zeuhl stuff, but today we leave you with music from Attahk, one of their most accessible albums.

Magma- Lirïïk Necronomicus Kanht (In Which Our Heroes Ürgon and Gorgo Meet)

Which is I guess as close as Magma got to making disco. Frankly astounding stuff, a swirling vocal maelstrom spinning demented and exhilarating over the scaly body of a fierce funk dragon as it hovers majestic over the sands of an Arrakean landscape (that’d be Colossus 13!) to the beat of a drum that vibrates with the same sort of martial yet free energy that animated the movements of that behemoth Can. Now is this the most exhilarating piece of music ever thrown up on the face of the Earth or what.

Also from Attachk, you can hear Nonono featured in the rather incredible mixtape that Joe put up the other day at Silkytooth. Cheers to Chris Pell for the tip.

Gang Gang Dance’s Saint Dymphna must be one of the most eagerly awaited albums of the year. And it so fucking delivers. Not the way we expected, check out Princes’ grime synth ride, but then that’s what we expected, we are talking Gang Gang Dance here, one of those rare outfits who manage to remain duly out there, like some sort of weird organic satellite floating in the interstice between atmosphere and a black space which is the place, feeding on mestizo transmissions from all over the globe which are then condensed into a primeval halo of muscular percussive energy shot back to make us speak tongues, imagine a booty version of the Sun City Girls and you aren’t there, but then you never will be there, until you press play and the ghost radiations enter your body like technological loas in a Gibson dream of the future that is here and now.

Gang Gang Dance- First Communion

Nigerian guitar melodies, the metronomic stomp of the beat of life and a bassline shining with that ecstatic glory !!! sadly lost converging wild into a pop apotheosis which is layer after layer of sound growing into a tidal wave that they master like God-crazed riders of the storm, or maybe fragments of a perfect piece of mutant soul you might have heard coming from a distant radio while roaming lost in the coruscating labyrinth of an Algerian bazaar, just before you turned a corner and the unexpected sun blinded you with its stroboscopic radiance.

Saint Dymphna is out on October the 21st in the Social Registry/Warp Records.

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with grime prog