Sula Bassana is the work of Dave Schmidt who is one of the most talented and hardest working men in the business. If collaborating with several bands all at once isn’t enough, he also has organized festivals in Austria as well as running the Sulatron record label and mail-order business which specializes in space rock and psychedelic music. I wonder how the dude finds time to sleep. Dave Schmidt started out in 1986 as a keyboard player of the electronic two-piece Solaris and that is where his love for psychedelic, space rock and krautrock inspired music began. He later work on the Twilight Network project and a short time later formed Liquid Visions with Hans-Peter Ringholz who went on to play a very Hawkwind inspired kind of heavy-trippy music.Read the rest of this tripp after the jump!
He also worked with Ringholz and Claus Bühler in the band Zone Six who went on to record 5 full length albums and a series of totally improvised live CD’s. He formed the studio project Weltraumstaunen in 1998 and also did further collaborations with Psychedelic Monsterjam. Another band was soon formed, the absolutely brilliant Electric Orange but while all this was happening, he was also putting together solo work with his first solo album appearing under the name Sula Bassana in 2002. The album under review here is solo album number three but there is an even more recent one titled ‘Kosmonauts’ that I will also review in the coming weeks.
The Night is a total vintage styled space-rock album from this incredible multi-instrumentalist and composer. ‘In Space’ begins the album in dramatic fashion. The song has an infectious beat coupled with an eerie synthesizer and it sounds like there is mellotron in there too but I could be wrong on that one. All I know this is an electrifying way to start the album and it sounds very retro and old-school. ‘Lost In Space’ follows that with hypnotic, krautrock grooves and mesmerizing, warm keyboard sounds. The centerpiece to the album is up next, the four-part 15 minute juggernaut that is the title track ‘The Night.’ It starts off spooky and atmospheric before some very trippy guitar work takes over which features a contribution from Stefan Koglek from the band Color Haze. This track keeps building and evolving and is very melodic and yet sounds incredibly psychedelic. This 15 minutes seems to fly by effortlessly and is the highlight of the disc.
‘Meteorritt’ kicks in next with sonic guitar noise at the start before settling in to more spacey sounds and grooves. This is stylistically the most straight-forward track on the album that seems to echo the work of Dave Brock and Hawkwind without simply copying the style. The last track on the album is the longest and the hardest to absorb. It is the 16 minute ‘Kosmokrator’ that continues on in the Hawkwind tradition of swirling guitars and the ambient floating through the universe kind of atmosphere. At times, these last two tracks are fairly heavy in a space-rock kind-of-way with repetitive passages clashing with diverse musical freak-out parts. You could say this is space-rock for the modern space-cadet as they keep the traditional space meets krautrock style in place but give it some new fresh appeal. By the time the ‘Kosmokrator’ space-ship lands, you really do feel you have been on an intergalactic journey. It is slightly exhausting but a total adrenalin rush.
This album is an exciting ride from start to finish that is both relaxing and intense at the same time. The creativity that Dave Schmidt shows with the Sula Bassana project has no limits and this is without a doubt his best work yet. Psychedelic and space rock fans should seek this album out immediately….9/10
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