The PotW squad initially had beef with Cameron “Sly” Stallones. It started from the “coincidence” that he shared an eerily similar moniker as the artist formerly known as Sach O. There were a couple threats to shave his mustache, several aborted missions to chain him to the Eagle Rock, Prometheus-style, and there was even a short-lived Royal Rumble involving several of us, Dean Spunt of No Age, Mr. Fuji, and several pounds worth of bleach. However, over a “totally cosmic” ayahuasca trip, we were able to reconcile our differences, leading to today’s post on Pop & Hiss.
Should you be too lazy to click over, here’s the abbreviated version: Sun Araw has carved a spot for himself at the intersection of psychedelic, dub and drone music, recording witching hour-long jams live and then layering fuzzy wah-wah guitars, odd percussion and plaintive wails The results are full of humid and hypnotic groove, tranquilized tribal drums and a slow swamp water slink. If you shut your lids and listen hard enough, you can hear the faint hints of his idols: the cosmic slop of Funkadelic, the ferocious locomotion of Fela Kuti, the stoned shape-shifting of Sun Ra, obscure Swedish psych-rock and the sorcerer minimalism of Terry Riley.
Of course, he’s not in that league yet, but he ranks with a-likes Brightblack Morning Light and his former band mates in Pocahaunted as some of the most notable purveyors of music for shamans, medicine men and the neon-clad crowds searching for purity in the primitive. Listening to “On Patrol,” the latest from the prolific former member of Magic Lantern, you’d be forgiven for mistaking his recording studio, the Sun Ark, as being located in a sub-tropical paradise filled with pastel sunsets, rather than proximity to the smog-strangled shadows of the San Gabriel Mountains…The soundtrack to imaginary yage binges, visions of chimerical beasts and the hard heartbeat of the Los Angeles sun.
Download:
MP3: Sun Araw – “Deep Cover” (Sadly, not a Dre/Snoop Cover)”
MP3: Sun Araw – “Heavy Deeds”
MP3: Sun Araw – “Horse Steppin’”
MP3: Sun Araw – “Harken Sawshine”
5 comments
Adam says:
May 13, 2010 at 8:06 pm (UTC -7)
So nice to see you posting Sun Araw. I recently did a post about the stellar mixes he’s put out for The Wire and Rose Quartz recently. I might be the one who’s mistaken here, and not you, but I’m pretty sure he’s still playing with both Pocahaunted and Magic Lantern. Both of their new albums bare his stamp, but it’s always hard to tell with that Not Not Fun shit. They thrive on mystery…
Passion of the Weiss says:
May 14, 2010 at 1:33 am (UTC -7)
Glad you’re digging it — saw the live show tonight and it was pretty rad.
From what I can gather from his website and interviews, he recently left Pocahaunted and Magic Lantern is on a semi-permanent hiatus.
Alex says:
May 14, 2010 at 10:43 am (UTC -7)
not sure if you had a chance to check out the latest Pocahaunted album Make it real, Stallone is on that one along with some other new personnel… they inject a bit of a funkadelic-ish kind of angle into the proceedings to some pretty good results.
Passion of the Weiss says:
May 14, 2010 at 2:19 pm (UTC -7)
Just downloaded it off the strength of the Funkadelic comparison. I thought their stuff before was *ok* but it lacked groove and I am a bit of a groove snob.
douglas martin says:
May 16, 2010 at 12:49 pm (UTC -7)
I haven’t heard the Pochaunted record, either, but I loved ‘Chains’. Maybe I’m skeptical because Bethany left, but I’ll listen off of the strength of your endorsement, Alex.