04 October 2020

MAGICK BROTHER & MYSTIC SISTER – Magick Brother & Mystic Sister (2020, LP/CD Sound Effect Records/The John Colby Sect)

 

 

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Sound Effect Records/The John Colby Sect

Format: LP, Album, Black Vinyl, Limited Edition, 300 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Clear (Transparent) Vinyl

Format: CD, Album, Digipak, 300 copies

Release Date: 12 June 2020

So, everything started somewhere in Paris, France, 1969… On the Early Morning Side (Side A) of the “Magick Brother” album, there was this ‘cursed’ opener “Mystic Sister – Magick Brother” by the duet of Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth that they were going by the name of Gong, destined to be ‘Masters’, ‘Travelers’, ‘Pioneers’…

What? No? Alright then, let’s start again…

What a wonderful super mind-blowing SURPRICE from Barcelona, Spain! Not far away from Tibidabo Mountain (The magic mountain of Barcelona) the new-comers in our Amazing Underground Psychedelic World, Magick Brother & Mystic Sister are here to “agitate” the waters of PSYCH! Combining Psychedelia, Canterbury Rock, Folk, Cinemascope Music, even some Bossa Nova, filtered through their personal 60s influences, this quartet from Barcelona delivered a memorable debut album that will keep us pretty occupied for the very next years… Who knows, maybe after a few more listenings, I will acclaim it as a “Reference Point” record to the Neo-Psychedelic Sound of the new millennium! I think I’m so addicted to the whole atmosphere and energy that this LP emits that I cannot be objective, but I’ll try…

The extensive but informative press release reads: “Music, more than all the arts, has the ability to move us to other settings, unforgettable times and moments and hardly describable through rational knowledge. Throughout the world, from blues to voodoo and the sitar of Ravi Shankar, it has been possible to enter other states of consciousness through sound. Few contemporary artists have been able to understand and preserve this spirit. These create our favorite, memorable records that give us goosebumps as soon as they start playing. The music of Magick Brother & Mystic Sister recovers and reclaims this function, that of being a mystical-magical journey through a refined and profoundly beautiful psychedelia. All the themes are thought out in detail both musically and conceptually, making an exquisite selection of each of the references they use: the music of the sixties and seventies, cinema and esoteric and underground literature, African percussion or cult films. Everything always passing through the filter of an extremely warm psychedelia, which can take you from ecstatic dancing to meditation and the dream of a vampire movie. Different registers change the rhythm of each song: Waterforms makes the sound flow, close to the martial arts films of the seventies and texts of Zen philosophy. Movement 2 is tribal, it takes us to trance and ecstatic dancing; in Utopia the female voices are intertwined with forceful instrumentation, reminiscent of the power of the moon and magic. A melodic and elegant psychedelic album, with some songs to enjoy a trip “seen through the eyes of Quetzalcoatl”.

Magick Brother & Mystic Sister come from Barcelona and they have no doubts about it: their goal is to make music that transports us to the environment of underground movies from the seventies or some ecstatic dance ritual, only to lead us on to natural gateways to altered states of consciousness. Their self-titled debut full-length will be out on vinyl and CD via a collaboration between Athens’ Sound Effect Records and Madrid’s The John Colby Sect”…

 

 

Magick Brother & Mystic Sister includes Eva Muntada (piano, synthesizers, organ, mellotron & vocals), Xavi Sandoval (bass & guitars), Marc Tena (drums & vocals), and Maya Fernández (flute). Their self-titled debut LP contains 10 songs, 5 on each side. The Magical and Mystical Trip of this quartet starts with “Utopia”, a slow tune that overflows melody, beauty, sunshine, with an intense hippy-like flower-power feeling (an aftereffect of that lovely Dominant Flute sounding) and divine voiceless female vocals… but all of a sudden, from the Hippy commune village we are transporting somewhere nearby Stonehenge, everything now is ‘flooded’ by a strange Canterbury-Rock atmosphere with colorful pinches of crystal Space and Prog, here and there… Did I already lose my mind? So early? We nearly have launched yet! “Waterforms” with its Groovy, Psychedelically Funky rhythm and the hippie-like atmosphere sets the scene somewhere in a field of daisies, in the middle, there’s this human-circle, singing, dancing, feeling… Slowly the day gives its place to the night and the tune becomes more mystical towards its end… But this is not the end… It’s a new Day… “The First Light” starts and the sound has now evolved, it’s more complex, it feels like we are entering the “70s” sphere… and there’s also this camouflaged incredible Pink Floyd passage… “Yogi Tea” is a Groovylicious Psychedelic tune full of cinematic vibes, this one has male vocals and it stands in the border of the 2 decades. The flute stays in the sunny West Coast late 60s but the organ prefers the dark early Prog 70s, the mixing is unique, so beautifully trippy! Side ‘A’ ends with “Arroyo Del Buho”, under a folkie almost bucolic environment, the flute fits perfectly but the piano doesn’t! I really can’t explain/describe this! A wonderful Paradox! Sooner everything becomes more mystical, more magical, more ceremonial, more trippy but after a while everything is changing again, becoming orchestral (somehow) and cinematic… What a beauty… Side ‘B’ opens with “Echoes From The Clouds”, another tune that tries to dive into the Canterbury scene – successfully I may notice – the dominant Flute covers everything with a Magnificent Pagan Prog-ish vein… Beautiful… On “Movement 2” the Flute and the Mellotron are having a sexy picnic up to the Proggy sky! The whole tune acts as a “forbidden” Love Scene from a 60s psych-sexploitation movie! The next one is called “Love Scene”!!! Coincidence? Well, I don’t think so! This instrumental piece of brilliance continues and takes us further and deeper into that lovely cinematographic era of dreamy Organ Psychedelia! The menu offers us next, some colorful Funky-Soul hypnotic and almost hallucinated music from a futuristic sci-fi movie with the Eastern-like and Vertigo-label inspired  “Instructions For Judgment Visions”! Eventually, the album closes with “Les Vampires”, probably inspired by the famous 1971 German-Spanish erotic horror film? Who knows… A fantastic dreamy cinematic atmosphere that becomes folky then proggy then psychedelic then… then… then… so many colors… so many shapes… my mind hasn’t stop projecting images… A stunning substantial magnificent album! Masterpiece! TimeLord Michalis

 

Tracklist

A1 Utopia 4:56
A2 Waterforms 4:06
A3 The First Light 2:24
A4 Yogi Tea 5:16
A5 Arroyo Del Búho 4:49
B1 Echoes From The Clouds 4:07
B2 Movement 2 2:39
B3 Love Scene 3:32
B4 Instructions For Judgment Visions 4:33
B5 Les Vampires 6:40

 

Listen through MAGICK BROTHER & MYSTIC SISTER Bandcamp

Visit Sound Effect Records

Visit The John Colby Sect

 

 

 

 

 

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  1. Pingback : TimeMachine Productions » MAGICK BROTHER & MYSTIC SISTER – Tarot Pt.1 (2024, LP/CD Sound Effect Records) 

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