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Øresund Space Collective

Hallucinations Inside the Oracle

Review by Gary Hill

I'm a big fan of this band. I like pretty much everything they do. Their brand of space rock is always improvised. They continue that trend and quality with this new album. It's available as a double LP vinyl set and a single CD. I'm reviewing the CD version here. While there are only three songs here, don't interpret that to mean that this is an EP. The shortest of those cuts is almost 20 minutes long and the longest is more than double that length.

This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2017  Volume 5 at  garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2017.
Track by Track Review
Reflections in the Mind's Eye

Trippy psychedelic rock with a definite Indian vibe opens this cut. It works forward from there. The sitar exploration adds a lot to this. It turns out toward more traditional space music after a while, getting heavier while never losing the trippy characteristic. It gets incredibly intense and downright noisy by around the 12 minute mark. It shifts to mellower space by around the 16 minute mark. While there are some noisier bits that dance over the top, this mellower form of space rock holds it from there until the cut ends around the 19 and a half minute mark. They create a lot of interesting melodies over the course of that time, though.

ESP (Extreme Spatial Perspective)
Coming in with driving, harder rocking space rock, this thing is pretty awesome as it works forward. As it approaches the six and a half minute mark it drops way down for a dramatic section of atmospheric space music. They make their way into harder rocking zones before the nine minute mark. Chirpy kinds of keyboards emerge over the top as the music dropping back. Then they take it down to a percussion dominated section for a time. As it builds out from there it does so with an intensification to some killer space rock. That keeps building and rearranging as they make their way forward. It gets heavier and harder rocking as it marches forward. It drops to just the keyboards to take it to the end. This cut lands just a few seconds shorter than the first number.
The Oracle
At almost 41 minutes of music, this is the longest track here by far. Trippy ambient keyboards open it and hold it for a time. Then sitar climbs up and takes the lead for a time. The keys create a science fiction like texture over the top as that is happening and other things coalesce in the arrangement. They take it through some seriously psychedelic territory for a while. By the six minute mark it's climbing into more pure space rock. As sitar continues to dance around this is really a great marriage of space rock and that Indian based psychedelia. By around the 16 minute mark it has dropped back to some seriously mellow space music that's covered with sitar jamming. With gradual shifts and changes this eventually makes it way toward more pure space rock, but not really the seriously "rocking" variety of it.  I love some of the guitar soloing, particularly when it seems to climb ever higher. By around the 27 minute mark we've made our way back to some pretty definitely mellow space music. They gradually ramp back upward, getting into seriously intense stuff by around the half hour mark. There is some more smoking hot guitar soloing further down the road. There is a bit of a triumphant, soaring kind of vibe that takes over in the neighborhood of the 35 minute mark. It drops back beyond that point to some really mellow sounds to continue forward. It moves toward spacey world music around the 38 and a half minute mark. Trippy keyboards take it beyond that to end the cut and the album.
 
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