It's been a great year for Charlambides fans. First there was the Charlambides' A Vintage Burden on Kranky - one of the finest albums of the year. Then there was Christina Carter's Electrice, also on Kranky. And now a mind-altering work of art in the form of Tom Carter and Robert Horton's Steeljaguar for Rocket on Digitalis.
Steeljaguar for Rocket is a real headtripper - a psychic exploration par excellence. Making sense of the liner notes is a headtrip in itself so to make matters simple let me just say that there are a bunch of people here - mainly Carter and Horton but with guests - playing a whole of instruments. The sound is pure psyche from start to finish: dissonant passages, ethnic-inflected bits, feedbacking washes of sound, lots of drones and everything else you need for a perfect psyche freakout. One of the aforementioned guest musicians includes Hal Hughes who turns in a great violin part. There's some wonderful sax playing as well by Henry Kuntz, and some great bird field recordings. Despite the frequent shifts in instrumentation, a consistent mood pervades the entire recording.
Fans of psyche owe it to themselves to check out Steeljaguar For Rocket. It will be a bit harder to find than the aforementioned Kranky releases, being on the smaller Digitalis label, but will be well worth the effort.
