CODEX SERAFINI - INVISIBLE LANDSCAPE


(Album Art: Ana-Maria Bordei Terr) 


"Invisible Landscape is the second recorded visitation by Saturnian emissaries Codex Serafini: Sonic sentinels born of the moon Enceladus, temporarily decamped to the shores of Albion." 

So begins the press release for this 19-minute sophomore release on Halfmeltedbrain Records by kraut/stoner psych merchants Codex Serafini. Harry Hayes twiddled knobs, or created artificial rooms, or hectically manipulated haptic sliders at Bottega Rooms. Renowned Ninja Tune master builder Slugabed accentuates the bottom end. 

Sparassidae sensory apparatus detected Schwingungen that were outlined in transoceanic communications via elektrical mailings to an avatar for the group, only to be met with gentle dissuasion. “Very well,” a certain New Age spirit animal could be heard in full splutter, imaginary ponytail flicked backwards in disdain, “I shall go back to my playlists, where ‘I’ call at least half the shots!”

If we use Julian Cope's lysergic test for separating the purely kosmische from the hack work of interplanetary dilettantes - space rock created by real aliens as opposed to "twee smug gits" - Codex Serafini deserve kudos for edging closer than many to that abyssal precipice. They’re interplanetary stalwarts of the Brighton psych scene, supporting sources of audial luminescence such as US neo-prog/psych crew Sunwatchers. Their use of costumes and insistence on anonymity follows the tradition of 'alien' bands like The Residents. The saturnine heavenly body worship puts them in the orbit of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Their music travels some of the interstate routes of desert stoner rock out of urbanite Morphine jazz grunge or Physics House Band psychedelic cosmopolitan fusion.  The sax work alternately evokes Faust's Gunter Wusthoff, Gong's Didier Malherbe and the Stooges' Steve Mackay. The rhythm section's bacchanalian groove generates Om overtones with canny fluidity. 

‘Organismic Thought’ suggests a samizdat transmission from a fabled land of noise rock Ur-deity Yoko Ono impersonators where The B52s love shack rock Suburban Lawns. There’s a grasping towards fusions of ecstatic/doom-laden psychedelia and free jazz that bring to mind the ambition of Pharaoh Overlord circa 2016. The positive space of the dub drop-out offers womb ambience for ‘Crawling Space'. "The melange! The melange!" exclaims our post-hippy/pre-punk 70s flower child. Throbbing rhythm sectioning and echoplexed yelps (combining Boredoms/00100 singer Yoshimi P-We, Aunt Sally-era Phew or even, eerily, the little punk girl in Art of Noise’s ‘Close to the Edit’ video) suggest Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry as much as Sun Ra is midwife to these seraphic bemusings. Acid Mothers Temple’s most dubby and delayed passages from Anthem of the Space is a convenient solar reference point.

The opening guitar lines from ‘Mendoza’s Memory’ bring to mind an acapella version of Sun City Girls' 'Space Prophet Dogon' performed in dusky Tenochtitlan or Goat’s Anatolian Sufi phrasings. Saxy snaky sway and modal mandala riffing reminiscent of Angel’s Egg/You-era Gong or Amon Düül II. A live performance of the song for Hot Box Live Events sees the guitarist stretching out with phase-delay looping that recalls Metal Machine Music by way of the prelude of Peter Hammill's 'Mr X Gets Tense'. In ‘Time, Change & Become’, femme vocals capture Renate Knaup in a hausfrau engel harmony vein before reverting to customary ecstatic schrei mode. 'Ere, have one of these (in the immortal words of Jon Wozencroft imitating Rob Gretton in Grant Gee's Joy Division* - still one of the finest music docos ever made imho) a new video: https://youtu.be/YhCuHIP2g5I. **

Space precludes exegetical discourse on the book from which the group have extracted their name, but there's a nice secondhand copy of Douglas Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern on eBay that our superannuated hippy spirit has its eyes on.

Here endeth the eidetic lesson. 

 


(Photo: Ollie Thomas)

Codex Serafini

Invisible Landscape

https://circuitsweet.co.uk/2021/06/codex-serafini-shares-new-video-for-time-change-become-video-premiere/?fbclid=IwAR0kBvL02qhELVViF-64u0Ys5japCNigu7qrwb_oJDSonu6WBfJP1R9TumM

Past Features: https://brightonsource.co.uk/features/inside-the-universe-of-codex-serafini/ https://circuitsweet.co.uk/2020/02/codex-serafini-share-new-video-for-liber-videopremiere/ 

For Booking and PR contact Matt at YeahGoOnThenPromotions@Gmail.com

OUT ON HALFMELTEDBRAIN RECORDS/CEREMONIAL LAPTOP ON LTD EDITION 

CASSETTE TAPE AND DIGITAL FORMATS FROM JUNE 11TH 2021. 

 

https://ceremoniallaptop.bandcamp.com/album/invisible-landscape.


(C) TEXT: JON KROMKA 2021

** And this 'ere for some favourable comparisons. Goat's very Amon Düül-ish 'Hide From The Sun' https://youtu.be/tnu_O5P8P5I To 'ere for comparable and excellent Amon Düül II, 'CID in Uruk' from Carnival in Babylon (1972) https://youtu.be/FpRNK-APszw 
Ash Ra Tempel's 'Flowers Must Die' from Schwingungen https://youtu.be/nHco02DiI3k
Sun City Girls 'Space Prophet Dogon' https://youtu.be/gfQljgzAtRE
 
* "A, how are you? C, what happened to B, and B, ah, there it is" (pre-Mr Bean Rowan Atkinson) Check this out if you don't believe me. And, to be perfectly francis vincent zappa, fuck you if you don't. Oh all right then, it's at roughly 49:15 to 50:10. Find it yourself, I'm not doing everything. https://youtu.be/gmaOqLLpPZQ
 

Comments

  1. Aeternal FluxJune 17, 2021 at 10:52 AM

    https://www.facebook.com/178882639259517/posts/1140139759800462/

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    1. Aeternal FluxJune 17, 2021 at 10:53 AM

      Some coverage from the good folks at Yeah Go On Then Promotions

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