The Great Filter
One of the delights of reviewing independent and underground releases is that you sometimes receive unusual, hand-made packages. I also have used this idea to connect with my fans, offering hand-made one-off box sets for Blue Lily Commission, Mooch, and my solo music. The Great Filter by Phoenix Cube & Kitchen Cynics (aka Simon Lewis and Alan Davidson) is one such, beautifully packaged in a cloth bag with all sorts of goodies inside along with the CD - see my photograph below.
This is pastoral, sometimes ambient, occasionally psychedelic, sometimes folk-influenced music, with plenty of drifting guitars, synths, and other, more exotic instruments, including one on the second track that I recognised at once: the bouzouki I sold to Simon a couple of years ago. Yes, he's a good friend, but this review will be honest, I swear!
The tracks alternate between the two musicians, opening with one from Alan, a delightful drift of delayed guitars and other sounds - including marvellous flutes - set against long period delay effects. Simon's first track, Lazy Evening Moon, features that bouzouki strumming chords, against which he sets synths, bass, natural sounds and hand percussion. A well crafted track, this one. Soft flute playing opens the next track, which has a more psychedelic feel, especially when the 1967-styled organ and keyboards come in. The vocals are keening, yet frail: a plague of frogs raining upon us…
From psych-folk the album moves on to electronic music of the jumpy and bumpy variety, a lop-sided rhythm underpinning various synth sounds and effects, until the sound world moves to church bells and a spoken piece in praise of the mind's freedom; then back to quirky electro-bop. Next up is Alan's Something Is Wrong With All Of Our Lives, which again taps into drifting, bucolic moods via guitars, flute and rippling keyboards. This is a song too, though, pitched somewhere between folk and singer-songwriter; mournful and melancholy. Simon's next track matches hand drums with beach sounds, then the sound of the man's voice singing, which has a different kind of frailty, one countering Alan's. This song heads off into slightly psychedelic territory; you could imagine it being recorded in 1972. A tune, also! The synth solo at the end is perfectly judged. Song Of Syrie is more of a weirdfolk piece, again with a nice tune to support it.
The next three tracks form a triptych composed of heavy synthesiser, guitar and spoken word segments, combining to form a dark, dense sonic layer. Bong, up afterwards, is a mesmerising instrumental formed from bass and chiming synths - great track, this. Delusyn is another instrumental, this time as light as a feather, which builds into a looping ambient piece that features a bit of bass and some kind of accordion - also very nice. Bodenham Lake, For Cara sets Simon's nature poem against an ambient backdrop that includes birds and natural sounds. It radiates peace and quiet. Every Step takes more of Alan's looped and delayed guitars to form another strange song of psych-folk, while the album closer from Simon is an ambient drift accompanied by singing bowls and bells… the ultimate somnolent farewell.
If you like variety, if you enjoy your folk psychedelic, and if you want to be taken on a pastoral journey by two accomplished, imaginative musicians, then this is for you. Definitely recommended! It fits into that strange, alternate folk world epitomised by Weirdshire, for instance; a Herefordshire happening. Check out this duo at Apple Tree Lament on Bandcamp.
