THE CYCLIST CONSPIRACY – Back to Hermetics and Martial Arts Vol. 1 (2025, LP, Subsound Records) 

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Subsound Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Clear Vinyl (Marble 3 colors wax), 100 copies

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl, 200 copies

Release Date: 14 Nov 2025

“The Cyclist Conspiracy is the musical output of The Little Brothers dedicated to The Mysteries of The Last Age. Started as an informal project within The Society for the Development of Alchemical Studies “Vasko Popa” in 2014, nowadays it is a musical troupe with the varying number of souls, from 4 to 10. The group draws influences from various parts of the world, while trying to avoid superficial, “new age” eclecticism and direct its creative efforts toward the synthesis of the given elements”.

The Cyclist Conspiracy, since 2014, have released 4 EPs (Digital only) and 1 LP:

“A Night at Café Constantinople” EP, self-released, 2014 (re-release, Ammonite Records, Serbia, 2015)

“Mashallah Plan: Virility” EP, Trashmouth, UK, 2016

“El Beso Della Muerte” EP, Inverted Spectrum, 2019

“Giftopoula” EP, self-released, 2020

“Mashallah Plan” LP, Subsound Records, 2023 (check my review here:)  

“Back to Hermetics and Martial Arts Vol. 1” arrives like a bootleg transmission from a dimension where the 20th century never stopped spiraling. The Cyclist Conspiracy — part band, part sect, part alchemical prank — returns with a cluster bomb of psychic debris, coded chants, and metaphysical detours disguised as tracks.

In this first volume, they offer not just music, but a cycle of inner journeys — “a collection of esoteric essays and short stories” whispered through sound. Faustian hunger, mystic transmutation, and the sacred absurdity of bicycle pilgrimages form the terrain. 

Let’s have a closer look/listen to the tracks of the album…

The album takes off with “The Throat Ancestors”, heavy, distorted, and ritualistic, it pulls the listener into uncharted Cyclist territory. An instrumental descent into throat-sung psychedelia and experimental feedback zones. Are the Brothers flirting with the abyss — or just tuning their instruments to the hum of the Earth’s core? “La Grande Maison De Fous” is an eerie continuation of the previous chaos — abstract psych washes over a cryptic French monologue. Short, strange, and dripping with atmosphere. “Nightmare Chicken” has dizzy surf guitars on a Middle Eastern scale, pulsing bass, and tight drumming that all together set the scene for this deranged dream-sequence. Imagine “Miserlou” played by ghosts with a saxophonist exorcising the room. Cinematic, spiraling, and downright psychedelic. “Estrella Marianna” starts deceptively soft, acoustic and meditative, then explodes into a Psych-Surf bullet train. Horns toward the finale deliver a Morricone-by-way-of-Mars feel. Spaghetti western psychonauts, take note… Side ‘A’ comes to an end with “Calice dei Fantasm”, a haunting homage to Italian giallo and metaphysical unease. Cinematic, gothic, and synth-drenched, with echoes of Soavi’s “The Church” and the shadowy streets of Dylan Dog’s Rome. An eerie chalice indeed, swirling with strange spirits and midnight electronics. Side ‘B’ opens with this tambura-drenched micro-raga called “The Verdant One”. Hypnotic, earthy, and transporting — like stumbling onto an Eastern jam session in 1967 Beirut, or maybe on a rooftop in Tehran. Short, but soaked in resonance. “The House of Dharma” is heavy Eastern psych that feels both vintage and vicious. Think “The Orient Express” album  crossed with “Incredible Kaleidoscope” — fuzzed-out darbukas and mystical momentum. A deep instrumental gem, trippy yet grounded in ancient soil… “Penga” is an improvised Çiftetelli mutation that writhes into avant-garde Anatolian/Balkan realms. Twisting, pulsing, hard to pin down — as if the ghost of Erkin Koray crashed a free jazz séance in Belgrade. Wild and wonderful… “Soften Our Evil Hearts” is a moment of peace to close the ritual. Gentle, sentimental, with a soft Oriental flavor — as if trying to mend the wounds opened earlier. A lullaby for the mystically shellshocked…

In conclusion, with “Back to Hermetics and Martial Arts Vol. 1”, The Cyclist Conspiracy unravel a sonic codex, dense with symbols, side roads, and spectral echoes. Play it backwards, or forwards — either way, the spell is cast. It’s a work that resists definition: part ritual, part soundtrack to an unwritten film, part transmission from a parallel psychedelic (maybe) East. Whether this marks a new direction or a temporary detour in their mystical travels, one thing is certain — the Little Brothers continue to pedal deep into the unknown, and we’re lucky to be caught in the draft. Take the long way home. Don’t look the Hermetic courier in the eye. Volume 2 is already watching you… (TimeLord Michalis)

Tracklist

Links

Listen / Buy through THE CYCLIST CONSPIRACY Bandcamp

Alternatively, get it via SOUND EFFECT RECORDS Web

Visit THE CYCLIST CONSPIRACY Facebook

Check THE CYCLIST CONSPIRACY Instagram