Saturday 29 September 2018

SHERPA - TIGRIS & EUPHRATES (Sulatron Records LP, CD).

Two years on from their spellbinding debut album on Sulatron Records, Italian Psychedelic adventurers Sherpa are back with a stunning new record Tigris & Euphrates. A concept album of sorts based around the evolution of human language through time and how it has deeply changed the relationship between people (for better or for wors) , the new LP sees Sherpa dive deeper into the narcotic netherworld channelling everything from Popol Vuh to Spiritualized , slowly unfolding through six tracks summoning ancient magic. It’s a dark album, slow and sometimes menacing, but at the same time letting brilliant white shafts of light and hope break through the haze. Much like the first LP, the band’s second album blends together the trippy Krautrock of bands such as Bröselmaschine, Gila and the more mellow moments of Amon Düül II, near transcendental Middle Eastern flavoured drone outs with the foggy vibes of late 80s/early 90s bands like Spaceman 3, Loop etc. but this time Sherpa ramp up the atmospherics and they texturally almost come across like Slowcore Post-Rock in the quietest sections.

Tigris & Euphrates opens with the brooding ‘Kim (((o)))’ before slipping into ‘Creatures From Ur’ altered state that channels a somnambulistic Jason Pierce. Beautifully mellow, the new Sherpa record explores blissed out soundscapes that evoke Spiritualized at their best but slowed down to a fraction of the pace. ‘Equiseto’ and ‘Abscent To The Mother Language’ are slow burning psychedelic embers, strange and beautiful in equal measures, flickering in Tigris & Euphrates smoky sonic fog. When most modern Psychedelic bands are recording albums that sound like Can, Sonic Youth and Hawkwind locked in battle in a distant galaxy, Sherpa have created an LP that is totally at odds with the current scene. Apart from a squall out at the end of the closing track ‘Descent Of Inanna To The Underworld’, the new Sherpa record has a meditative quality of floating free of the anchors of the earth. Totally brilliant, you can check it out here……………………

Tigris & Euphrates is out NOW on Sulatron records and available on clear vinyl (limited to 500 copies) and CD from all the best record shops and the usual suspects on line.

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