Trance to the Sun
Urchin Tear Soda
Precipice
Listening to this album is like stepping into a shadowy-bright parallel universe, or a psychotic’s paranoid nightmare. Here nothing is what it seems: the beautiful full moon is toxic to behold, hearts are made of wire and words, and dirty little girls are the good ones. Slowly, Ashkelon Sain’s swirling psychedelic guitars, brooding synth atmospheres, and hypnotic percussion draw you into Trance to the Sun’s magic, manic world, while Ingrid Blue’s shiver-spoken, blister-whispered vocals submerge you completely with dark visions of things you wish you hadn’t seen, but can’t tear your eyes away from.
Like “Modus Opera”’s vision of a dank hole in the wall lined with pale seeds through which the malignant narrator alternately teases and comforts his/her brittle crustacean lover, all set to the painfully labored beat of a heart going too slow to stop crashing into overwhelming walls of sound built of guitar, synth, and electronic percussion. Or the awesome cover of Pink Floyd’s “Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun,” which seems to fit right in with Trance’s fantastic weirdness; as the driving guitars feed the interstellar overdrive, drums pound the fearful heartbeats of the solar-bound travelers while bright synth bits glide past like distant stars. But to me, the ten-minute closing epic “Vortex Airplane Itinerary” shows best the shining black multicolored flames Trance to the Sun is made of. Launched with a howl, pursued throughout by deep hollow rumbles of inner and outer space, punctuated with things seen and unseen blipping or throbbing or humming past, “Vortex” takes you on a one-way trip to dark psychedelic realms undreamed of.
About the best reference point I can give you for Trance’s aesthetic is Edward Ka-Spel’s work with the Legendary Pink Dots and Tear Garden, but Trance really is in a lovely, demented class all their own. Tune in, trip out, but watch your back.
Precipice, P.O. Box 190552, Miami Beach, FL 33119; precipice@mindspring.com
