Scenic - The Acid Gospel Experience
(Hidden Agenda)
Scenic is one of the few instrumental bands whose name is a descriptive metaphor of their music. No recording in recent memory has the cinematic breadth of opener "Year of The Rat." You can almost feel the scope of the Arizona desert (the quintet are from Sedona) panning across your field of vision as this musical postcard plays itself out. The furious drumming of Brock Wirtz (named after the popular sausage, no doubt) propels "Lightspeed" across the universe, accompanied by moog and synth effects from (ex-Savage Republicans) Bruce Licher and Robert Loveless and the occasional sitar embellishment from Mark Mastopietro. Loveless' synth emulates the sound of wordless vocals and coupled with Licher's fuzz-laden guitar riffs, the whole track sounds like a 21st century update of an Ennio Morricone western soundtrack and would sit confortably alongside his work on Once Upon A Time in the West and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
The sleepy title track moseys its way around your synapses on a smooth, velvety synth carpet with twangy guitars, loungy vibes, chamberlains, glockenspiels, kitchen sinks (no, just kidding) along for the magic carpet ride. Perfect head music for a stroll in the park, although I think the Catholic Church has expunged this gospel from recent editions of all the bibles I've checked out!
Septuagenerian Harold Budd, who's recorded with the likes of Brian Eno, Andy (XTC) Partridge and Cocteau Twins provides a piano base for "Under A Wing" and if Moon and The Melodies is amongst your Top 5 Twins' releases, you'll love this. "Lunar Afternoon" (like "The Spheres," a three-year-old track previously demoed on The Spheres EP) is as spacey as its name implies. Like a sci-fi soundtrack, this would be the perfect accompaniment to watching Fantastic Planet with the sound turned off.
James Brenner's familiar five-note syncopated bass riff forms the backbone of "Skylight" (one of three tracks with "light" in the title), a fairly exact copy of "Heroine's Theme" from Strawbs' "Autumn" medley on Hero & Heroine, while "Lightcord" features another of Mastopietro's sitar solos, but feels interrupted—like a prelude to a longer piece, and consequently ends too soon as if the band lost their direction, forgot where the song was supposed to go and just ended it.
The album's closer, and 19-minute centerpiece, "A Journey Through the Outer Reaches of Inner Space" begins with an ever-expanding pulse from the center of the ultraworld, sets the controls for the heart of the sun, and then proceeds to enter the only point of entry into the future, thus combining The Orb, Pink Floyd, and Grimble Grumble into one incredible expanding mindfuck that will take several days and a few little colored pills to come down off of. Be sure to prepare your set and setting accordingly.
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