What happens when modern shoegazers launch a band, influenced mostly by psychedelic rock? Well, they name their team Clustersun, (a pretty retro-psych image, isn’t it?), and load their musings on a psych-gaze platform! If you consider next that the band is a pumping fresh and originally talented team, then you have an astonishing release, the new ‘Surfacing To Breathe‘ LP! Clustersun, from Italy, made me react like someone suddenly attracted by a colourful mirage of psychedelia. My eyes opened wide, my ears transformed into radar dishes while I was comfortably nailed to the sofa, trusting that the trip would be good, and it was!
Their intensions were clear in ‘Raw Nerve‘ and ‘Antagonize Me‘, both groovy and fairly loud songs, but all was revealed in ‘Lonely Moon‘. An astonishing, mid-tempo old school psychedelia tune, where keyboards and synths came as aircraft and lifted me to planetary fields, big keys-fat synths, which mention, “All your flowers wait to bloom, as my skin slowly dives in you, just your scent still lingers on, where my sigh will stay forever more”, with looong effects on vocals.
I was stunned! ‘The Whirling Dervish‘, the band’s 8 min. dedication to Pink Floyd, filled with shoegazing craft along with psych breaks, and then again to the core “Set the controls for the heart of the sun, the Clustersun”, and all my respect to the band that isn’t shy to show its great influence, and pay tribute, followed by the instrumental amplified headway of ‘Don’t Let The Weight Of Your Soul Drag You Down‘. These two were a long 12 min. trip from earth to ether and back, similar to the homonym track where guitars are an angry, rockin’ shoegaze and the long break nails you down to the Pompeii dust!
And next to all came as a surprise, where Clustersun use their psych-gaze art to play…post punk! One bend until the end the ‘Emotional Painkiller‘ soundscape unveiled like a furious and “flanged” raptor, accelerating to the finish line. Lastly, ‘Event Horizon‘ puts all Clustersun’s matter together, in an anthemic song where I found all elements together in a small crystal bottle!
Italian (Catania) Clustersun are very well “educated” in the music they offer us to enjoy and play themselves to jam, skilled in the arrangement topic, very creative in their melodies and certainly familiar with their pedals. All these comprise a band synchronized to their common vision, making psych-gaze music in steps, never masking each other. You know…they know music. 19th May’s ‘Surfacing To Breathe‘ opens a new broad horizon that many of you will find gems in, and some musicians will be thrilled. So, try the taste of Clustersun; it’s damned excellent!
Mike Dimitriou