Hamsas Xiii: Delight and Enchantment

Writing about Hamsas Xiii is not an easy task when you are a huge fan of the band and have to necessarily present a neutral assessment of their work and not just a blind critical acclaim just because you like the music they make. On the other hand a complete neutrality would not be wise because you’re writing about something that gives you aural pleasure and sets your mind free to trip out. So let’s make an effort to say something wise…

Hamsas Xiii is a duo whose core members are the songstress Robyn Bright from Canadian post punk act Cockatoo and multi-instrumentalist Rich Witherspoon long-time guitarist and co-founder of American goth rock outfit The Wake. There is also another musician who also joins Hamsas Xiii as a guest studio performer and which is the well-known Red Lorry Yellow Lorry guitarist David ‘Wolfie’ Wolfenden who also collaborated with The Mission, Rose of Avalanche and Expelaires.

Needless to say that in face of such aesthetic background we feel quite tempted to promptly send Hamsas Xiii back to post-punk, goth rock, ethereal, dark wave and drone great dominions where the duo not only nurtures but seeks their Acme. That does not work as a handicap, a stigma or a prejudice but quite the opposite. In order to plunge in the depths of Hamsas Xiii sound one must not ignore or delete their musical influences since doing that it would be like denying the musical DNA of these two poets of beautiful and mysterious soundscapes by somehow drying the marrow that represents the essence of their work.

Hamsas Xiii present a sonic proposal built upon all those genre influences mentioned above, though openly assuming them while at the same time rejecting to reproduce mere sonic narratives in spite the fact of their most recognizable references could be effortlessly traced. We can say that Hamsas Xiii draw their creative imagination from a wide spectrum of filigranity spanning from hidden secrets and muted feelings, recurrent dreams, anxieties and fears, delayed expectations, angst and frail hope all of them so characteristic of 4AD label and superbly crafted by 4AD acts since the Ivo Watts-Russel/Peter Kent/John Fryer up to present time.

According to this perpective Encompass is the best title the Bright/Witherspoon duo could have chosen because this debut album reunites much of the previous material of the band now reworked but it mostly serves to point out roads to be probably taken when it comes the time to release a follow up album to this one.

"Encompass" is not a mere listing of songs, it is a stunning addictive vicious album that once you get immersed into it you feel the urge to hear it again and again. I can tell you that over the past two weeks I have listened to it more than a dozen of times and each time there is something enjoyable to discover some pleasurable detail that makes a click in your spirit.

"Encompass" would dare to say that it really isn’t easy listening since you can only get the most out of it if you got some concise background on the influences and references present in Hamsas Xiii work otherwise you will not benefit enough from this truly delicate gem for one simple reason you’ll lack point of contact. It would be like reading a poetry book without understanding what poetry conceals.

If we shuffle through the songs that are part of this album and starting with Unbound and finishing with Breeze we enter a dimension of gloomy atmospheric and melodic fluidity in which the bass is often played as a lead instrument displaying unequivocal influences of Cocteau Twins (Head Over Heels), The Cure (Seventeen Seconds; Faith; Pornography, Carnage Visors and Desintegration), The Sisters of Mercy (First, Last and Always; Floodland), Gene Loves Jezebel (Promise) and surprisingly Joy Division which subconsciously or not are quite present in "Encompass".

This maybe due to the role attributed to bass guitar played as lead instrument just like a lead guitar so very similar to what Peter Hook does in both "Closer" and "Unknown Pleasures" but also because the syncopated cold drum programming systematically reminds either Joy Division or The Cure and even the big real rock drums' notion we find in "Encompass" is much more related to these bands than to any other band else.

One extremely interesting and rewarding aspects of "Encompass" is the crossover that blends post punk and its diversity with the strongest middle eastern influences that remind us of Nyaz, the Montreal based band with deep roots in Iran’s music mixed with some intense scent of Massive Attack (Heligoland, 100th Window) and Archive (You All Look The Same to Me) downtempo/trip hop sway but also Silver Ghost Shimmer noise pop and this one have John Fryer’s magic touch.

"Encompass" would not be possible without the influences and references gathered through time, but those influences would be useless without the superb talent and artistry of the Bright/Witherspoon duo who was capable to craft an album that is a mix of exoticism and esoterism since each song presents the listener layers and textures like veils that hide and never uncovering the ultimate truth, but keeping a permanent tension between the alleys of a sometimes frantic rhythm with shimmering guitar patterns and lingering vocals, and sometimes thick dark, unsettling guitars and basses that stumble into vocals that range from disquiet to lament and spellbound highlighted with one of the finest senses of drum and percussion heard in a long time.

I am convinced that "Encompass" will stand as one of the most brilliant albums of 2015 and years to come leaving the listener in a constant state of desire to get back to it. This album is pure opium absolute delight and enchantment!

INDIEVOTION RATING: 8/10

Shark Logic: Thr Bristol Groove

Shark Logic is an experimental industrial alternative drone techno noise rock duo hailing from the southern English town of Bristol and were formed back in 2010 by vocalist Tom Kennedy and his old friend guitarist Tim Leesam. The simple fact of emerging from Bristol makes us almost inevitably digress about the worldly known bristolian music scene for its reputation for innovation, experimentation and quality thanks to a bunch of rather successful acts like Portishead, Massive Attack, Martina Topley Bird, Tricky, Ilya and Fuck Buttons.

Bristol is somehow a city of contradictions home to a trend wide range of artists who've drawn their inspiration from the city’s rich spectrum of musical counter-cross-currents. Back in the early 80s most of those who made things happen in the Bristol music scene were playing in bands like Rip, Rig And Panic or Pigbag.

Such an interesting piece of information helps to understand why the Bristol sound mark was tinted upon an open state of mind, allowing mingling punks, rastas, DJ’s, hippies, hip hoppers and jungles without making any effort to mute or replace ones for the others but did quite the opposite attempting to culturally embrace them all in a superb melting pot music scene.

In the Bristolian music history Hip Hop performs a central role instead of Pop Rock. Bands were replaced by posses formed by rappers, sound men, sound system units, speaker stacks, DJ’s. Suddenly guitars, basses, drums and vocals were relegated to a sub-dimension while the Bristol blasted a new exhilarating vibe that begun spreading all over the UK.

Getting back to Shark Logic we acknowledge that their first two EPs respectively “The Brick Under Your Bed” from 2012 and “Cerebral Bore” from 2013 were some sort of very different field experiences being the first EP simply electronic ambience and the second a rather noisy aural experiment.

As far as we understand, these experiences answer to the need of musical identity building so it is pretty natural that initially Shark Logic did not attempt to limit their sound experimentation to any particular genre or style. Apart from allowing both Tom and Tim to have some fun with home studio equipment both “The Brick Under Your Bed” and “Cerebral Bore” essentially served as possibilities to find out different musical pathways although it seems rather obvious with “The Brick Under Your Bed” that the band experimented different electronic approaches for future exploration.

Shuffling all songs we can perceive that each one of them works like electro-exercises infused in House and Downtempo vibes. “Cerebral Bore” works as the second chapter of this set of sound experiments with a different outcome when compared to the first EP. The guitar presence, the programmed drum patterns help translate Shark Logic sound into a deeper, much grittier, dirtier industrial noise rock infused sonic-scape in straight opposition to “The Brick Under Your Bed”. Both two EP experiments have actually helped quite much to clear the way to depurate “Salt The Earth” redefining sound and songwriting, creative process.

“Salt the Earth” puts away some initial influences blending electronic and industrial noise rock in some aesthetically cohesive product which far from the earlier playing around with technology without frontiers offers the listener an enthusiastic trip through nine songs that are a pleasure to the mind and not only to the ears.

Each song with its layers and textures of sound and noise results in pretty cool cinematic trailer themes due to a rather rich sonic imagery that redirects us to some highly potential influences we find present in “Salt The Earth” such as Throbbing Gristle; Sunn O))); Massive Attack; U.N.K.L.E.; Chris & Cosey; Portished; Tricky. No, this is not a menu of influences to make our task easier, but without many of them “Salt The Earth” would not be eventually possible.

The effort to create without any genre limitation was a good way to start for Shark Logic and a very prolific one since it allowed them to make this very good album though after listening to all their work I find hard not to sense that “Salt The Earth” end up being tremendously bristolian after all and did not manage to escape the omnipresence of that Massive Attack/Robert Del Naja atmosphere.

If one has doubts about it just check out the awesome “mezzaninesque” “Penny” and all your doubts will vanish away. This is not a criticism nor a debasement in fact it is quite the contrary. Shark Logic assume their musical environment aiming for much more. Highly recommend their debut album.

INDIEVOTION RATING: 7.5/10

Mayflower Madame: Post Punk From The Fjords

When you grow up and grow into the fabulous eighties you feel somehow blessed by the imaginative transition that some bands managed to work out from the mere pure rioting fury messages of Punk anarchy to some angst ridden uneasiness known as Post-Punk. During the past three and a half decades many things happened to the Post-Punk movement since Joy Division transmuted their genuine punk roots to herald not only a new sonic reality, but also the translation of existentialism into the routine of a more introspective, artistic and enlightened generation of working class young adults. Anger, despair and darkness. Such a plot against mainstream.

I only knew of Mayflower Madame’s existence since three weeks ago through David Alison from Custom Made Music who sent me some stuff to see if I was interested in publishing something about it. Of course, I was interested. I did hear the music that he sent and felt the urge to dig for more.


Mayflower Madame emerge from Oslo, Norway, and they are a four piece whose members Trond Fagernes (Vocals and guitar); Rune Øverby (Guitar) Petter Gudim Marberg (Bass) and Ola Jørgen Kyrkjeeide (Drums) crafted some delightful pure dark Post-Punk perfectly mixed with a slight touch of neo psychedelic reverberation. I could not be more well impressed. This band is stunningly good!

As I was saying many things happened in the past 35 years with a lot of come-and-go from many bands which could not stick to the Post-Punk “aesthetic guidelines” because they felt the need to get more commercial, play bigger venues and big summer festivals. Let’s be honest about it. Most bands out there no matter their musical genre seem to get satisfied just for being copycats of those who influenced them, Mayflower Madame decided that was too little for them to do so.

The band managed to create a refreshing haunting melodic sonic reality where you can spot most of their main influences like The Velvet Underground, Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, The Church, Sonic Youth and The Black Angels but you cannot say that they are imitating or merely reproducing their influential references because they really aren’t. They have sewn all of them into one soundscape and that is Mayflower Madame musical DNA.


This peculiarity made Mayflower Madame gain attention from fellow countrymen which lead them to open for Night Beats and Crystal Stilts and also to play the Underwood Stage (displaying the eight most promising bands in Norway) at the 2013 Norwegian Wood Festival edition headlined by Nick Cave and My Bloody Valentine.

In August 2013 Mayflower Madame released their four song debut EP titled Into The Haze available here on vinyl or digitally recorded and mixed by Bent Bredeveien and Mayflower Madame and mastered at Strype Audio by Martin Bowitz. Early this year Custom Made Music released a limited edition cassette single available here featuring "Into The Haze" and the B-side "Confusion Hill".


After repeated auditioning the most obvious reference that rises above all in Into The Haze four song EP Into The Haze exhales insistently to Echo and the Bunnymen albums Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here with all the swirling guitars, gloomy angry bass lines and hypnotic drumming masterfully blended with quite a bit of Sonic Youth from the Dirt album in particular due to the fuzzy distorted guitars cutting the songs in the middle like melodic chainsaws if this is sounds any possible, alongside with the dense neo psychedelic haziness of The Black Angels.

One very interesting aspect of this EP resides upon the fact that due to tonal similarities consisting in some strange vocal blend of Ian McCulloch, Wayne Hussey and Steven Kilbey which results in Trond Fagernes quite good personal vocal style exceeding expectations from a performative point view giving a much richer twist to each song with vocal nuances avoiding tonal linearities so typical of those who don’t know how to build a personal singing style apart from their influences.

Mayflower Madame along with a few other bands suchlike Cockatoo, Hamsas Xiii, Desperate Journalist, Viet Cong, Vacant Lots, Jennie Vee or Clustersun just to mention a few of them are taking Post-Punk and its derivatives to the heights again, leaving the listener with a feeling of impatience and eagerness for their debut album due to be released this year.

Clustersun: The Italian Revolution

I really don’t have a convincing explanation to justify the reason why a southern European country like Italy has produced so many good post punk bands particularly shoegaze ones Metaphysics put aside Italy is definitely producing a varied and thrilling creative sonic reality which can easily compete with many of the very best that have been made in the UK during the glorious years of first shoegaze wave. Italian shoegaze offers a rich palette of bands pointing for new delightful dominions widening the sonic frontiers of the genre.

Hailing from the city of Catania in the east coast of Sicily (Italy) Marco Chisari (vocals and bass), Mario Lo Faro (guitars), Piergiorgio Campione (synthesizers, keyboards and backing vocals) and Andrea Conti (drums) long-time close friends are the core substance of CLUSTERSUN. These four friends started rehearsing by the early shrieks of 2013 but their strong human interconnection and common musical background worked out as the magic potion to get things done faster than the band could have ever expected.

Lucky enough to have muso parents listening to The Beatles and Pink Floyd rather than to the mainstream Italian music this true gang of four friends became curious about new music and this curiosity made them discover The Velvet Underground and further on a bunch of bands influenced by VU.

Suddenly the gang of four from Catania was listening to Slowdive, My Bloody Valentine and Ride but also Joy Division, New Order and The Cure. One easily understands that after all this intensive learning under the influence of such bands the gang of four friends would want to start a band with a crush for post-punk, psychedelia, krautrock, dream pop, noise rock and shoegaze.

So it is not surprising at all that once they emerged as CLUSTERSUN that their sound worked as an invitation to a sonic canvas in the shape of a wall of sound where brush strokes reverberate psychedelic dream pop shoegazed melodic textures. Soon after first rehearsals the band self produced what would be their debut single Be Vegetal included in the 2013 Summer Sampler post-punk, psych, garage and the indie alternative compilation released by Custom Made Music, the highly respected American indie label run by Dave Allison, which has an impressive artist catalogue where one can find among many others bands such like Ceremony, Ringo Deathstarr, Dead Leaf Echo and Peter Hook & The Light.

The year of 2013 proved to be quite crucial to the band since it marked their signing with Seahorse Recordings the Italian indie label run by the legendary Paolo Messere leader of seminal Italian underground band "Blessed Child Opera" who also mixed and masterly produced CLUSTERSUN highly acclaimed debut album “Out of Your Ego”.

The album features eight nicely crafted tracks: Hipgnosis, Meteors, Be Vegetal, Planar I, Nebula, Floating, Planar II and Clustersun. All the songs denote a simple, classic but effective dark drumming beat design, backed by cohesive syncopated bass lines sparing room for the edgy cold, glassy guitars and the fat analog synthetizers, all of this topped with melodic vocals perfectly fitting the overall urban post punk psychedelic mood of CLUSTERSUN.

“Out of Your Ego” offers the listener a very pleasant and stimulating aural experience because when you have years of music in your ear drums, it’s only inevitable to dig not for comparisons, but for influences and sometimes you find stuff that even the musicians do not perceive as an influence though that is not the case with CLUSTERSUN for they clearly acknowledge their sonic roots. We’d say they managed to fuse The Cure (their most notorious influence) with MBV and Ride adding to this recipe some aspects of Pink Floyd, and details of Siouxsie and The Banshees, Joy Division and even Faith No More (the synthesizer in Planar I is so Midlife Crisis).

CLUSTERSUN blend psychedelic soundscapes with shoegaze and post punk through noisy melodies going from chorus-delay atmospheric ambient to fuzzy-reverb-distortion this makes Out of Your Ego an ingenious, beautiful, poetic and excellently produced album. What a brilliant work! The year of 2014 was a landmark in CLUSTERSUN's career because of their brilliant debut album although 2015 has also begun quite well with their participation in the superb Revolution - The Shoegaze Revival curated by Shauna McLarnon (of Ummagma) and Marc Joy (of Lights That Change) who have teamed up with the UK’s Ear to Ear Records and Indonesian label Gerpfast Kolektif released last February.