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INTERVIEWS
DoomMantia Queen
Elephantine are all this and
so much more as they are different from the usual Droning kind of Doom
that people are used to hearing from their use of Middle Eastern
influences. Their psychedelic spaced out doom jams are among some of
the most original ever created and since their earlier split album
recordings with Sons Of Otis and Elder, they have come a long way.
Their most recent album titled "Kailash" is a 71 minute atmospheric
masterpiece that is an essential purchase for everyone into not only
doom but also creative progressive ambient music. They have shared
stages with Earthride, Solace, Pale Divine, Cough, Black Pyramid, Elder
and Admiral Browning to name just a few and from all reports their live
shows are a total experience not to be missed. Aleks Evdokimov caught
up with guitarist/vocalist Indrayudh Shome (Indy) for this great
interview.......... A:
Hail, Aleks. Queen Elephantine
is in the middle of recording our third full length, and we have a
couple of EPs somewhere along the works. Since I moved out after 2008,
we have only been meeting from time to time and playing shows
sporadically, so it's been a little hard to move things along. But in
the summer of 2009 we played a couple of Northeast USA shows with
Elder, Kintaan, and Black Pyramid, and wrote a new record during then.
Mike Isley and I recorded the guitar and drums in Los Angeles this
summer with Trent from Whores of Tijuana engineering. We're still
waiting to finish recording everything else, then I'll probably mix it,
and if we're lucky Billy Anderson will help us master it again. A:
I don't know, it depends on
what we play and record and end up liking. I like splits that are done
with the particular project in mind so that it's a cohesive listening
experience. For the split with Sons of Otis, we all tried to put that
together as sort of an album, and I think it feels that way when you
hear it. Personally I love splits, but you have to wait for a good
opportunity to arise. A:
Yatra was done before Kailash,
but those tracks wouldn't have fit in at all. The new album is sort of
one long song in three parts, so it would be strange to include two old
songs. Yatra was a free EP because there was not too much thought put
into it as an album, but it works pretty well, so it would be nice to
give that a better treatment instead of try and squeeze that in where
it doesn't naturally come. A:
I love the community that
today's technology allows. Such small scenes can have great exchange
when not bound by geography. It's great to get into other music that I
might not have heard when they're put together by these guys who run
blogs, because you know the ones who have similar tastes and you end up
liking ninety percent of the compilation. And there's no money to be
made, no bullshit, just love of music from everyone involved. A:
There are no ideas, everything
is obscured, even to us. Truth is sensation and raw human dissonance,
channeled through devotion to the goddess, which is unified underneath
everything. A:
Well, with the new album at
this point we're just recording what has pretty much been sorted out
last summer, so it is not about to change too much. As I said, it's
sort of in three parts, and it's only about thirty minutes, so it's
much shorter than Surya and Kailash, both of which were about an hour.
Basically bass, drums, guitar instrumentation, with Raj and I doing
vocals together, and some other instruments and sounds here and there. A:
We just… played, for
thirty minutes or however long that was. I can't remember if we thought
of Ramesses as the image for the suite before or after. A:
Igor and his label are great,
and it seems like RAIG are real heroes of the Russian scene. Heh, god
knows what I say, but anyway that's not exactly what I meant. I think
that the relationship to mood in psychedelic doom is akin to that in a
lot of Indian classical music. Each note and phrase is given time to be
really expressed and felt, and in both cases the result is an
intense experience of mood. For example unlike scales in Western music,
in Hindustani music each raag has a story, an image and spirit, which
is meant to be felt and expressed in a genuine performance of it. And
dissonance and minorish melodies don't have a long history in the West,
even a few hundred years ago the ideal of music was to be plain,
balanced, and symmetrical. But the appreciation of these expressive
tones are pretty deeply rooted in India. There is also a similar
spiritual realm accessed through the slower tempos, circular patterns,
the low frequencies and all-consuming wavelengths. And, if it's a
discussion of what "doom" we're talking about, fuck that and fuck
purists, I'm not trying to play any genre name game, I guess I'm a
pluralist for better or worse. My point was that I think India has a
lot of potential to put out some good heavy music in the coming years,
as the country is arriving at a state where people are starting to play
in underground bands. A:
I study mystical philosophy and
music technology, so I get to be around things I love, and so it's very
hectic, but it's do-able. The label has been quite inactive since I've
come to college because of how hectic it is, and I'm hoping now that
I'm nearing the end, that I'll be able to put more time and focus into
it. Given what I'm studying, I just hope that I am employed at all and
can afford some peanut butter and fruits to live on and that I can
continue to play music. I'd prefer to not to work for someone else, but
I would still like to eat and play music, so I guess I will have to see
what balance I can strike. A:
Lalon Fakir is one of the most
celebrated Bauls in Bengali culture, and because of people like
Rabindranath Tagore, we Bengalis hear a lot of these wandering musical
mystics. As I studied the Baul cult in more detail while I was
researching some of the tantrik philosophy and rites of Bengal, I came
to discover the several esoteric layers of meaning in Baul songs. Much
of the philosophical background I was familiar with, but there secret
sexual rites were new to me, and the conceptualization, sprouted from
the visualizations of tantrik sahajiya Buddhism, and the passionate
spiritual embodiment maybe of Vaisnavite and Sufi roots-all very
powerful. But Baul verses, especially after they were popularized in
the early twentieth century, have left their impression for their
independent beauty and penetration of truth and the goddess, and less
for their esoteric ritual meanings-obviously, as those meanings and
rituals are esoteric and protected. A:
The saharsrar chakra is most
commonly visualized as a the thousand petal lotus, the hundred petal
lotus is slightly less clearly, and less consistently, situated. A:
I also do daily meditation and
some stretches and exercises. A:
Swami Vivekananda has said,
music is the highest art, and for those who understand it, the highest
form of worship. Music is the most sacred Hindu teaching, and it
transcends even those categories because it is pure, there is no ism,
just sound, just energy, just attunement with soul and cosmos. A:
Western culture is fed up with
religion because it has mostly seen a real narrow and repressive form
of Christianity for a long time, which has sometimes oppressed
knowledge and expression and has caused a lot of dilemmas for Western
thinkers. It was really a political presence, and I don't think it was
received purely spiritually for the great part. Every place and people
have their own trajectory and will come to terms with the world in
their own ways, I am not trying to proselytize or replace religious
images with others. If other mythologies and pagan ideas are more
sincerely inspirational to others, what sense would it make for them to
express anything else? Do what's real to you. I mean, I am inspired by
a lot of imagery from a lot of cultures, and often my knowledge of that
is shallow, I try not to get too involved and just go with the feeling
and images that come. A:
The lyrics on the demo we've
put out are "Red birth / Us the tongue-ripped / Home is this carcass of
old tree. Here I ride / a chariot / with no horse. Words / you're also
gone / now what am I / less / and purer for it." A:
I moved here from New York in
January 2009. I studied there for a year and a half, and was in Hong
Kong before then. It's a very nice community and there are a lot of
great bands here, and it's the first non-big city I've lived in. A:
Matt Becker who I met in an
ethnomusicology class at college plays bass, and Nate Totushek, who was
introduced to me by friends from a music forum, plays the drums. And
no, alas, there is no Queen Elephantine in Providence. We are a nomadic
group nowadays. A:
It was good in Hong Kong
because we didn't really have a label there to promote or distribute
that kind of music. It's a very small, unique, and transient scene in
Hong Kong. We have White Noise Records and a small presence besides,
but I was able to help out and work with a lot of people while I was
there. Now that I'm in USA, I agree that there are a lot of labels, and
I'm not trying to compete, especially because as we said I am a
full-time student right now and it's impossible for me to put enough
energy into it, but hopefully one day I can put a lot of time into it
again and help bands. A:
I think it's just a great scene
where there is a minimal amount of bullshit, and I was just sincere
about what I wanted to do and bands like Sgt Sunshine and Sons of Otis
were just rad and wanted to do it. As I said, being in Hong Kong was an
advantage because this music wasn't really represented well. And
absolutely. I feel like I am able to reach out to the audience I am
looking for, all five people… A:
Ten or so? A:
Gayatri Krishnamurty is trained
in Karnatik music, which is the classical music of South India, but she
is also interested in music without formal boundaries and so we started
working on stuff. We are taking our time with it, and we work on it
every few months when I am in Calcutta, but I am excited about that
project. Gendo Taiko is from Providence and they are nuts. I want to
bring some of this music to the psych/drone/doom community, because as
we were saying above, I think there is a strong connection in mood and
I think people would dig this. A:
Queen Elephantine is
unmarketable and I'd rather it be very mildly marketed if at all, and
I'm protective of where our shit goes, so I have released all our full
lengths. But I'm not against working with other labels at all,
especially with non-LP releases. Queen Elephantine recently did the
tape release of Kailash with Abandon Ship (USA), a split 7" with Alunah
on Catacomb (UK), and a live CDR with Ruralfaune/Faunasabbatha. If the
right label came along that was cool and also could do much more for us
than I could, then I don't see any reason not to work with them. A:
No plans, no idea. We're still
very young, but I'm dying to play as much as I can before I leave the
country, or at least the city. It always takes some time to settle down
to a new place and find the right people, so I want to make the most of
it now that we've come together before the whole thing must happen
again. I finish my studies in June, so who knows what will happen after
that. A: Thank you so much. You guys run a great site and do a lot for this kind of music we all believe in, and thank you also for your interest and support of our shit. All the best. ======================================== Bad
Acid Magazine Kailash
is the most recent
recording from Queen Elephantine, an enigmatic
‘project’
that’s seen a number of different line ups and
locations.
Broadly speaking it falls into the ambient/drone field, but to label it
‘drone’ would be to underestimate the range of
sounds this
album covers - guitar riffs, classical Indian sounds, eerie
atmospherics, vocal dirges, spoken word, stark percussion and loose
ominous basslines, all tied together by a very minimalist and
repetitive style. Far from being a mess of all these aspects
though, the changes and progressions of the music take place on such a
vast scale and at glacial pace, that they become more or less
imperceptible. Elements flow into one another in a vast
gloomy
space where everything seems held in suspension. Recorded
and mixed by the band,
Kailash has since been mastered by Billy Anderson, and a 60-minute edit
of the album is out now on cassette through Abandon Ship
Records.
The entire album can be heard on their myspace, and they are currently
looking for someone for a CD, digital, or vinyl release.
Given
its length, Kailash would be a double lp, which with Adrain
Dexter’s excellent artwork would be a special thing indeed. Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: Repetition
is a defining
characteristic of Queen Elephantine’s
sound, and the long and winding jams of Kailash are grounded in this
and the largely improvised song writing that makes such an open space
within the music. I was curious about how structured or
focused
this improvisation was… While
this spontaneity has not
changed on Kailash, the writing and
recording process was very different from the previous album Surya,
which came together out of long jamming of the songs, until as Indy
puts it ‘We went in to our studio and just jammed the whole
thing
out. We wanted it to feel spontaneous and live off the floor
and
messy and loose.’ Kailash seems to have come
together more
gradually - Bad
Acid : Indy
: Improvisation
has its limits, you
risk being left with 8 hours of
rambling crud with an hour’s worth of gold buried in amongst
it. This trap is neatly avoided on Kailash though,
it’s not
edited down to total slickness but there’s little wasted
space. While Queen Elephantine try to follow the flow of
spontaneity as much as possible, what you hear on the record is not a
completely unconsidered archive of jams. Kailash
continues the strong theme
of mythological and religious
imagery that underpins much of Queen Elephantine’s
music.
Bands seem to take completely different approaches to such things as
album names, sometimes I’m sure it’s just a case of
what
sounds cool, and at the other end of the scale are the full-on concept
albums, where everything from title to packaging fits within the
framework. I asked Indy about where Queen Elephantine sit on
that
scale - Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: Equally
untraditional is his
attitude to the ‘rock concert
format’. We got talking about good doom gigs, and
up came a
recent Earth performance that he’d seen in New York: Bad
Acid : Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: It
seems to me that besides
changes in line-up, moving between cities
and countries must have had a pretty significant effect on Queen
Elephantine. Kailash has a much more bleak sound than Surya
and I
wonder whether this is down to more than a new
‘theme’, the
metaphorical journey of Yatra is easily tied to the physical journeys
that the band members have made. It would be a hard thing to
quantify, but I asked Indy whether he felt that place and local culture
fed back into the developing sound of their records - Bad
Acid : Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: Bad
Acid : Indy
: …and
so the seeds of doom
were sown. Having said that
though, Kailash is much less ‘doom’ than you might
expect
from a band that has put out material with Sons of Otis and
Elder. Not that it’s a bouncy album of pop songs,
in fact
my first reaction - music to hibernate to - might have been almost
entirely correct… Bad
Acid : Indy: ======================================== Doom
Metal Alliance Derek: Musicwise…
doom, psych,
drone, noise, grunge, stoner rock, sludge, rock especially from the 60s
and 70s, metal…. Earth, Swans, Om. Image and idea
wise…
primitivism, death, ancient civilizations, hollow spaces, insanity,
Zen, nihilism, vedic and tantric stuff. ======================================== This
Is Rock Download PDF
======================================== The
Sleeping Shaman Queen
Elephantine could be
described more as a collective than a band
and are certainly not one to shy away from experimenting, not only with
their sound, but also with their constantly rotating line-up which
see's members, past and present, come and go with every new release and
with it brings a whole wealth of influences and ideologies to the mix.
Intrigued to know more about the enigma that is Queen Elephantine, I
caught up with their main protagonist Indy... ======================================== Grey
Day Zine GDZ: First, What’s the history behind the name of the band “Queen Elephantine”, sounds like a Indian divinity or similar? QE:There’s actually not much of a story here. Danny Quinn and I had almost always been in bands together, and we thought, Let’s try and for once get a standard band name… The Adjective Nouns format. Of course we failed. Sadly, Queen Elephantine was the most normal name we could conceive. Later on thanks to Google we found out about Satis, the Queen of Elephantine, as in the Elephantine Islands off the Nile, and that whole myth. At the same time, Adrian Dexter had painted our split with Elder with a ‘Queen Elephantine’ character coming out of the Nile. So we like that connection, but it’s just coincidence. GDZ: In Internet Queen Elephantine come from different countries like Hong Kong - China … New York - USA … or Bangladesh - India… Where you really come from? QE:That’s a very difficult question. The band was formed in Hong Kong, where all the original members grew up. The self titled disc, the splits with Elder and Sons of Otis, and Surya were all recorded in Hong Kong. Then I moved to America for studies. Danny, the other founder of the band, trusted me to carry the spirit of the band on, and the group reformed with all different members in the new country. I met Raj, who composes the music with me now, in New York. The two of us recorded Yatra and the yet-unreleased split with Aluna with Chris Dialogue on drums and Brett Zweiman on bass. For our next full length, Kailash, we really have no idea who we’re going to record it with. Then I’m moving to Rhode Island in January, so we shall see what happens then. GDZ: Now, it’s time to talking about your music… Can you describe me in few words the essence of your music. QE:Someone described Surya as early Grateful Dead that heard everything that happened with rock and metal since. I liked that. Or maybe as Danny Quinn puts it, “Heavy Hippie Music.” It’s spiritual music. Relaxing, lethargic, downer music. GDZ: If you need to label your music… What genre is more accomplish to Queen Elephantine`s music… f.e: Sludge. Stoner. Psychedelic. Experimental. Post-blablabla. QE:I think Psychedelic is an easy cop-out, so that. Because what does psychedelic really mean? It can mean stoner, space, acid, and all of that, it can mean doom, ambient, drone stuff, it can even mean trance music. It can mean Velvet Underground, it can mean Kyuss, it can mean Pink Floyd, it can mean YOB, it can mean something like Gnaw Their Tongues. So it’s a good, safe label if we have to pick one. GDZ: What’s your favourite track from all the releases of Queen Elephantine and why? QE:Ramesses the Second, I’d say. Because of Danny Quinn’s bass line. We recorded the Ramesses suite, as in the split with Elder, completely improvised, and the bass line that Danny came in with on the guitar riff right then gave me an incredible feeling of elation. It sounds like a massive elephant marching to a war he’s not going to wage. GDZ: I really like your covers, Who painted the Surya and Yatra covers? QE:Surya was done by Adrian Dexter, who’s in my opinion one of the most fantastic music artists today. He’s just on the rise - some twenty years of age, so hopefully the world will see a lot more from him. He also did the art for our splits with Elder and Sons of Otis. Adrian is almost a member of the band who doesn’t play in it. Yatra was done by Aurora Cremer, who also did a beautiful poster for our shows in Delaware and Virginia last November. GDZ: In Surya tracks, I can hear into background a very hypnotic meditation bells or something similar… This is a sound sampler or an ethnic instrument? QE:For the first four tracks of Surya, you’re hearing an electronic tanpura, which we use live as well. In Indian classical music, it is used as a sort of tonal anchor, since much of the music is modal and improvised, like ours. GDZ: Recently you published a free EP “Yatra”… tell me about the musical diferences between Surya and Yatra releases. QE:Like I said above, it’s a completely different band. Also, Surya was jammed out from beginning to end with one mindset, except for Bison which we had recorded a little earlier. Yatra is a grouping of two tracks we did at different times with different sounds. That’s why it’s an EP and not a full album for us. It’s a collection. GDZ: Queen Elephantine self-released Surya… Why you chose this kind of release? QE:For a full length, we want to make sure that it is going to a label we know and respect so as to make sure we’re on the same page and have the same vision. Within that group, we couldn’t find any label that wanted to release it. So we self-released it digitally and on CDR to try and raise funds to release it on CD, which is happening now. GDZ: Nobody signs Queen Elephantine? Do you have any contacts with music labels for future releases? QE:Well, that’s the situation with Surya, but we are always into doing splits and collaborations and EPs for other labels. Catacomb Records from the UK is about to release a 7” split with Aluna soon. We have a few collaboration albums that we are working on and an EP release in France, but I don’t want to speak to soon about them. GDZ: Tell me about the experience of self-release an album, jammin`… production… mixing… QE:It’s the best, as long as you’ve got the equipment you need to do it. In Hong Kong, we had our own studio. We are weird people with a weird taste in sound. Many people complain about the production of Surya, but we really love it and want it to sound exactly like that. When we recorded in New York, I found it very difficult to communicate exactly what I wanted out of a recording to an engineer. I will probably mix things myself, until we find the right engineer with the same vision as us. GDZ: When I make an interview always repeat the same question about Internet Downloads, because I’m so interested in artist’s opinion. What’s your opinion about music business? Do illegal downloads benefit the artists, because much people have access to our music, or simply rip your work? QE:I can’t speak for big bands who are making a living off their music, but we primarily want people to hear our music. I’ve grown up with the internet and freedom of information and I was something like ten or eleven when Napster first came out, so for most of my life I have been able to download music. I personally believe that music should be free. Today, illegal or not, that’s the reality, and people are listening to more music of a greater diversity than ever before. You can download most of the music you want for free. But then the real music lovers will go out and buy the CD or the LP to cherish a hard copy collectible of the album, and support the band. They’ll go to concerts, and buy t-shirts. This way, there’s a lot less money in the industry, yes, but it’s a lot more dedicated and a lot purer. Today’s situation primarily injures those involved in manufacturing music who rely not on exposing quality music, but on packaging and selling an image by flooding the mass-media. Many of the fans of this kind of music are also therefore fickle and have little loyalty or respect for the musicians. If this sector of the music sphere is getting choked out, then good. The best thing about doom music is that all the bands are in it first for the music. No one is going to say, “I know, a good way to get rich is to start a doom band.” How about for a band struggling to get off its feet? People probably won’t pay ten dollars or whatever for their CD without ever having heard of them before anyway. If someone downloads their album and likes it, then he might tell five other people about the band, and so on, and the exposure will lead to some good press and some good shows and they’ll reap their monetary reward in time, and probably quicker. GDZ: Finally, can you reveal me some plans for the band future… QE:We are doing a few collaborations, like I said, but until they’re done I don’t want ot talk about them, because a lot of times these plans change or fall through. Our focus in the next few months, before I move out of New York in December, is going to be Kailash. This may or may not be our last album, even though it’s only our second full length. It all depends what happens in Rhode Island and what we feel is right for the band. It’s going to be very different from Surya in some ways, but we always try and preserve the spirit of the band throughout, so I am sure by the time it is done, it will also sound very similar in some ways. We have recently been very disillusioned with shows in clubs – a lot of bands like us aren’t best felt in a club. I went to an Earth concert in May and I really wanted the show to leave the Knitting Factory and go out to an old warehouse or an abandoned Long Island wharf. Raj had just sat down in the middle of the crowd. That’s the space we are in right now. We want to play in our own element, which is nature. We want to go out and be inspired by nature and gather our ideas from there, write songs outdoors. I was watching a river thawing from winter in Maine, and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, but more than that, it reminded me why I needed to play music. I could heard the rumbling bass and the soft guitars flowing with the heavy crush of the river. We also want to play whatever we feel is right, and not be limited by instrumentation and what we can do live. Whereas Surya was a completely live thing, this one will probably be done with more premeditation. Rather than, “Let’s just play and see what happens,” we might start with “This is the image we are following and this is the end we are hunting, let’s now see how we play it.” We already recorded some demos for Kailash, before our mindset totally flipped, so we have a nice 7” worth of material, but as usual, I don’t know if we’ll find anyone who wants to release it. I am also hoping that someone will be interested in releasing Surya on vinyl, but no one has approached us about it yet. GDZ: That’s all! QE:Thanks so much. Good luck with the zine.
"Droning
Earth Vol 25" / EGB 2009 Queen Elephantine toob minuni Dark Ambient rännakud Tiibetis. Vokaaliefektid on loos suurepärased ning väga sünged. Kohati Raison D’Etre’lik helide käsitlus, teisalt aga Dead Can Dance’i meenutav meditatiivne ethereal. ======================================== Nonelouder.com:
Live Review Queen Elephantine played next and as aggressive as Ichabod was, these boys (there wasn’t a member over 21) brought us back to earth, or should I say, launched us into space (rock) with their droney, serpentine interpretation of Sunn0))) as filtered through Sleep. It was a droney repetitive riff fest. Vocals were more chants then melodies and the structures were loose and at times more theoretical then solid and concrete. These fella’s are one’s to watch. They are grasping, but aren’t quite reaching, a unique sound. I think they may get there…. ======================================== Bad
Acid Magazine: Tab 6 ======================================== "Sound
Of The Catacombs" Compilation / Catacomb
Records 2008 QUEEN ELEPHANTINE - "Sea Goat" : Apparently these New Yorkers are sometimes compared to PINK FLOYD. Judging by this track I wonder why because doom rock simply doesn’t come any more limp-wristed than this. Which is a good thing by the way! One of the better tracks on the comp. ======================================== HK
Underground: Live Review off to a slow but deeply rich start, they're all about populating the bassline with juicy tidbits of stoner love and fascinating variation to keep you solidly in their groove. and a wonderful groove it is. i thoroughly enjoy every sedimentary syllable they have to utter. they seem to have almost invented the mind of the stoner in all its cannabic glory, an absolutely blissful place to get lost in for an hour or three. not a whole lot of original melody here, but pretty much everything a slowly wandering mind seeks to encounter. they are the abolutely perfect accompaniment to couch-lock, leaving you wanting nothing but another plate of nachos. the band "tool" has a bit more creativity and variation, but queen elephantine is very stiff competition as far as keeping an awesome vibe going goes. i seriously cannot think of any way that they could possibly improve. they're like floyd without the legacy. truly a stoner's wet (if a bit cotton mouthy) dream. -Amos Rani Z (Heart & Crossbone Records, Israel)December 2011 Album of the year. ======================================== Chybucca Sounds December 2011 Top 50 Albums of the Year, #30 Leader of the Gelug branch of Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama embodies the spiritual and political struggles of Tibetan Buddhists. Unfairly described as: “the man who brought Buddhism to Hollywood,” the Dalai Lama has never been described as bringing his enlightened nirvana to the interconnected subgenres of psychedelic-doom: that is of course, until now. Queen Elephantine’s third release, Garland of Skulls – a reference to the short life story of Guru Rinpoche; who is said to have bought Buddhism to Tibet in the eighth century – is a cleansing experience. With a running time of 35 minutes, Garland of Skulls is split into three parts: ‘Potency’, ‘Libation’ and ‘Garland of Skulls’, each of which is as downtrodden and symbolic as its predecessor; or in other words, metaphysical doom: the feeling of your mind and limbs succumbing to the state of weightlessness. As the tanpura drones and the riffs churn with bleak inevitability, the hold that this release will have over its listener will be nothing short of spellbinding. ======================================== Doom-Metal.com By Frédéric Cerfvol September 2011 Queen Elephantine have been around for some time now giving us various records, and after Kailash in 2010 comes now Garland Of Skulls, their third full-length, distributed by CLF Records. The Hong Kong band relies on heavy stoner rock laden with drone elements and lament-like singing to try and induce ritualistic/tribal atmospheres. I believe that their formula is almost as good as anyone’s out there, except that after the first song of Garland of Skulls, namely ‘Potency’, and its original if not fantastic use of sitars, it tends to wear off a little bit since both ‘Libation’ and the ending eponymous track seem to be made from the exact same mold. One persistent quality found throughout the record is that the slow pounding riffs of Queen Elephantine has the potential to induce alpha brain waves and put you on a very relaxed plane of consciousness. The problem is that for some it may also be synonym of boredom. To try and appreciate the music of Queen Elephantine, it probably takes some kind of pre-meditation state where your heart and brain will not focus on the music but let it resonate throughout the whole body. I can see that now since being a bit sick, I’m heavily sedated and the music is now opening doors which remained closed at first. I’m not saying though you should completely get in a drug stupor to enjoy the music because we’ve got public health standards here at doom-metal.com, but chances are that's what it really takes to give Garland Of Skulls two thumbs up. ======================================== Sludgelord September 2011 Queen Elephantine are a Stoner/Doom Metal Band from New York City/Hong Kong/Providence Queen Elephantine are an Experimental Avant-Garde Stoner/Doom-Metal Band. As they draw many ambient and eastern noises into their music. This band has been very prolific in the 5 years they have been up and running.... I have heard of these guys before but have never really listened to their music. But I wish I had as I have missed out on some of the most original Stoner Metal Music out there. I have to thank Concrete Lo Fi for sending me their new album to check out. Garland Of Skulls. A 33 minute 3-song masterpiece of Stoner Metal Weirdness and Greatness rolled into one. I have been reading from other reviews that Garland Of Skulls is the band’s most assessable and commercial record to date. Well if it is I am going to check out their back catalogue ASAP. As these guys rule on their new record. Full of great Stoner/Sludge/Doom Metal Riffs with ambient and eastern mystical effects pumping all the way through. This is Thinking Man’s Stoner Metal. You need your wits about you on this amazing album. As I have listened to this a few times and am still trying to get my head around it. A sign of true originality in my book. So their new release is superb. Brilliant artwork and production shine through. If you want to check these guys out. You can download free of their selected previous releases from their BandCamp Page and Official Website mainly their superb release Yatra. So if you like what you hear you know what you are in for. Now it will take me a while to listen to their other material. But it’s a journey worth taking. Highly recommended. ======================================== Roadburn September 2011 Album of the Day ======================================== Sleeping Shaman By Pete Green August 2011 There comes a point when listening to a record becomes more of a religious experience than a musical one. Queen Elephantine’s 10th release is one such experience. Indy Shome and his merry musicians from the NYC have once again crafted a singular flowing piece of belching doom chords, ringing Middle-Eastern tanpura twangs and neo-gospel vocals to accompany the thematics of Tibetan Buddhist mythology. A short release for a full length, ‘Garland of Skulls’ wastes no time in dragging you across a floor of distorted bass for 30 minutes plus. The simplistic bass riffing becomes so repetitive that before you know it the record has nigh on finished and you’ve been swallowed up into a hypnotic trance for a half-hour! It’s sometimes difficult to tell with such long and disjointed pieces of instrumentalism, quite what is written and planned songverse, and what is simple improvisation to fill in the gaps. Vocals are few and far between, and when they do surface it sounds like a trio of lonely church-goers praying to the dead at dusk inside a cavernous and isolated cave. It’s certainly far from cheery on all accounts as half-riffs drop down off-kilter, like tombstones collapsing under the humid weight of damp smoke in a deserted graveyard. When drums do kick in and some form of tempo is set, the tanpura (a sitar-like creation) becomes the instrument of mystery, shaking off conventional string arrangements to create a nervous ambience; uncertain and eerie in its textures. It’s hard to make comparisons to the dense, suffocating atmosphere here, which is almost drowning in a pool of its own wonder. Sleep’s ‘Dopesmoker’ comes close with its hour-long droning riffs and almost liquid heaviness, but Queen Elephantine are one step beyond, kneeling at some long-lost stone altar in the middle of a snow-smothered winter forest of pines. This music is primal, raw and natural in its composition, and with the master of the decks himself Mr Billy Anderson’s name proudly billed in the mixing position, the heaviness of the guitars is dutifully cranked up to add an extra weight crushing down on the skull behind the ears. The swirling noise-box sounds echoing out of the final title spook the mind to the same effect as seeing a UFO briefly settle down on the Earth to dump some trash, having a quick peruse around the local villages before vanishing silently and undetected into the night. Jeepers. Another strong and forceful record this from the prolifically active New Yorkers. Each listen produces new sounds that previous attempts glossed over, and ultimately this is not a piece to listen to whilst doing anything else as it will be over before you even realise it has begun. Anderson’s impact pays its due with those bassy guitar riffs rumbling like church pews in a summer hurricane and the volume of the notable silences inflicted between the musical motions further exaggerates the sheer weirdness of the concoction brewed. A difficult and partially unhinged outing, ‘Garland of Skulls’ leaves you feeling as if you’re walking out of a monastery, enlightened by the confusion you’ve left behind. ======================================== Indie Rock Mag August 2011 Le Streaming Du Jour En 2006, le duo hongkongais constitué de Indrayudh Shome (guitare) et Danny Quinn (basse) s’appelle encore The Weapon Of The King Of Gods et c’est avec l’adjonction de deux batteries qu’il se rebaptise Queen Elephantine. S’ensuivront quelques EP (dont un split avec Sons Of Otis), deux albums ( Surya en 2007 et Kailash en 2008), de multiples changements de line-up et un déménagement aux États-Unis. Le groupe sort son troisième album ces jours-ci. Un troisième album constitué de trois morceaux ou plutôt d’un seul morceau divisé en trois parties. Un morceau qui évolue dans les eaux troubles d’un doom poisseux et minimaliste, très largement psychédélique (voire carrément psychotrope) et presque expérimental dans sa façon d’étirer si dangereusement son tempo et d’inviter un tanpura à rehausser sa formule guitare massive/basse profonde/voix incantatoires. Et si on ne sait pas trop ce que fait le « Medecine Man » et septième membre du line-up actuel de Queen Elephantine, on comprend très bien en revanche à quoi il sert. Fermez vos volets, allumez quelques bougies, montez le son et envolez-vous au son de ce Garland Of Skulls à la fois mystique et dense. Saisissant. ======================================== Born Again Nihilist By Stephen Connor August 2011 For those who like their music fast paced, upbeat, laden with hooks and messages of positivity (and if you do great, but eh, wrong blog) then you maybe best avoid 'Garland Of Skulls', the new full length effort from New York based, Hong Kong formed minimalist doom crew Queen Elephantine. Essentially one long song split into three separate tracks, it's a stark, downbeat and reflective mood that pervades, but nevertheless a record that rewards the patient listener. The band's sound is an interesting blend of styles, hypnotic, swaying rhythms, lithe and complex drumming, and eerie chanted vocals, all awash with droney, cold guitars, with a guitar tone that recalls latter day Neurosis in parts. In fact, the influence of the Oakland legends can be heard throughout, and one can easily imagine QE sitting quite comfortably on the Neurot roster, given the contemplative, almost tribal atmosphere generated in the band's predominantly instrumental rumblings. Some marvellous Eastern instrumentation on album mid section/second song 'Libation', complimented by some haunting chants and sparse, piercing guitar lines elevates the album out of the doom metal ghetto, and proves to be the best thing on here, while elsewhere the title track grooves and writhes in pleasingly monged out fashion, fuzzed out bass blending seamlessly with a menacing, prowling riff that eventually collapses in on itself like some sort of wounded, dying animal. Much like recent albums by Sleestak and Red Sun, this isn't a record that can be described as easy listening. It's spare, down and subtle stuff. But much like the aforementioned bands, it's a rewarding listen to those who are willing to take the plunge. One for those late winter nights perhaps. Rating: 8/10 For fans of: Neurosis, Oxbow, Sleestak ======================================== Hellride By Jay Snyder August 2011 I’ve been waiting for mood master Indy Shome to bring Queen Elephantine back around to solid ground, but in recent times, it seems like that hope is dissipating more and more with every release. The debut album, Surya was a great piece, hinting at a bright future post the split tracks with Elder (which were also worth a look), but everything I’ve heard since hasn’t quite cut the mustard. I was positively bored by the last one Kalish and it’s plaintive dronescaping, but I’m not one to write Indy off just yet…probably never. The kid’s got spirit, heart, and style…he puts his vision out there and makes no bones about the process. So, when Indy hit me up recently about trucking out to the band’s first Pittsburgh show, he also came bearing gifts, as he has so often done in our dealings. He hooked me up with Garland of Skulls, the band’s latest Billy Anderson mastered LP, and their 3rd full-length to date. This one’s a little more doom-y than the wandering rove and sparse instrumentation of Kalish. There’s more in terms of riffage throughout the one epic length track (split into movements) on Garland of Skulls, but sadly all of the riffs sound very similar to one another, the drumming needs more punch, and on the last movement, the title movement if you will, the band is in need of some serious tonal clarity; the stringed instruments distilling themselves into a soup of ringing, raking nondescript chord clatter that sounds sloppy, and undercooked. Is it raw enough to hit on a visceral level? Sure. Yet, the band’s Om flavored, hypnotic groove calls for a subtler, softer hand and intense forward motion; neither of which are present on the album. I will throw out props for the dreary, dually delivered, ethnic vocal hums. They’re very spiritual in nature, and definitely have the power to fly over the right material…but the music is just too turgid for its own good, without any key changes in sound or atmosphere to keep the flow engaging; when my head should be banging, with eyes closed and teeth clenched, the band leaves me hanging with a blue-balled brain stem incapable of releasing any pleasurable neurons. That’s not to say that I hate Garland of Skulls, I just find it uneventful. It doesn’t send me running for the razors, nor does it have me frantically slamming the replay button; it just kind of sits there, and that’s that. If you like drone with an emphasis on doom-y crush, you might dig it. To me, it’s at least a step back in the right direction with the reintroduction of some tangible riffery, but I’d like to see the band make the individual compositions stand out. Even though this is one lengthy track, there needs to be more happening to keep me interested. But, then again…I think Jerusalem/Dopesmoker is a masterpiece, when many others find it to be one of the most boring things ever cut to tape. Whatever the case with my leprosy is, QE are getting the wheels back on the road…if they could meld the heavy clank of Garland of Skulls with their space-y, transcendental past, I think they’d really have something special on the next album. Until then…I’ll see the band live, and remain in waiting mode. ======================================== Doom Mantia By Daryl Adolph July 2011 Doom has many varying styles to it, all surrounded by making a certain feel for it... and the Stoner style is one that is gaining momentum at the moment. It is a particular style that is an acquired sort of taste – yet one that is sort of overlooked by many. Layered, textured music and heavy, it creates something that can be difficult to explain. Coming out of New York City -Via Hong Kong, this is pure stoner music to a tee. With low strung guitars and almost slow motion music – it has a force and strength all its own. As artistic as it is Heavy, this band commands that it gets and needs to have respect. To put this band into some sort of perspective, I would have to put them sort of what Pink Floyd or Hawkwind would be if they went metal while on serious rounds of downers while experimenting with some instruments from India. All three tracks that are on this EP are forceful yet very melancholy, with this overall bleak feeling that nears the bottom of pure desperation in every word sung. It is so spacey, yet it pulls you in to its dank vortex and leaves you suspended in a void of sheer blackness – yet leads you to a light, one that you do not know if it is good or bad unless you get there. Pretty heavy shit. I usually do not go for this side of the Doom spectrum... but after listening to the whole album from Queen Elephantine... clearly this is a band that I will keep an eye out for in the future. My first experience with this truly unique band, left me needing and wanting more of the same. It just reminded me that talent comes in all forms, and not to close the mind off to anything.....8/10 ======================================== The Worst Horse July 2011 The latest entry from the ever-expanding realm of metal/Buddhism crossovers is the cover and title of the new EP by the great doom/drone band, Queen Elephantine. The Tibetan-thangka-style art is one thing, but it doesn’t really get more metal than “Garland of Skulls,” does it?* (Queen Elphantine has dabbled in imagery from world religions and cultures, what with album titles like Surya and Kailash, and song titles like “Search for the Deathless State.” And you can download their record, Yatra (as in the Hindu term for “pilgrimage”) for free here.) Hear the slow, dirgy, powerful track, “Potency,” from Garland of Skulls, here.
By Jay Snyder July 2010 Queen Elephantine has got the kind of storied, historical richness that you could write a book on. Mastermind, and musical whiz kid Indy Shome transplanted himself from Hong Kong over to the States, finds himself in Providence, Rhode Island, teams up with a vast array of musicians (including a personal luminary of my own, Andrew Jude Riotto of Agnosis/Archon/Tides Within), usually switches the line-up slightly for each recording, and continues to plug on. Yeah, that’s just the abridged version! It also happens that the band employs unique instrumentation and sounds of all types, dabbling in a myriad of ethnic, tribal and traditional Indian fusion in addition to their doom and psych leanings, reflecting on the cultural diversity and wayfaring ethos that the band grips tight to its core. It’s more like a cult than a band really, and now we’ve got the band’s second long player, Kailash staring this beardy face right in the beady whites. I have to admit honestly, that I’ve kind of fallen out of touch with the band. I’ve followed for sure, collecting a split with Elder, a split with Sons of Otis, and the first LP Surya in the process, but then the wheels came off my wagon. I still play some of that stuff from time to time, and it certainly has its appeal to this day (I can’t deny some huge, psyche expanding work, no way, and QE did it just right in the past), but here I’m struggling to find an entrance point, leaving Kailash strictly lukewarm to the taste buds. It’s too meandering, and lacks the power I’m looking for, and that’s coming from someone who actually enjoys these sorts of tribal, mellowed-out sounds whenever they happen to come my way. But, like I said…there’s meandering, and then there’s too meandering. It just kind of sucks to say this, because I felt that this band was carving a unique path, and now their drone-y side has taken over fully, but the interesting ideas I’ve felt were prevalent in the past, are replaced with open space that doesn’t leave me musically satiated. And the thing is this, QE droned in the past, but it all felt important to the overall musical mission, here it’s just space, space and more space, but I can’t seem to grasp the point. It’s like a fighter pilot ejecting from his cockpit, and ending up in the Lost Woods from the Legend of Zelda, and I don’t think you need to play the game to understand the analogy (basically, there was a lot of dead ends in those woods, and there’s plenty of ‘em here). Opener, “Search of the Deathless Star,” kind of illuminates all of the woulda, coulda, shoulda beens of this album right off the bat. Buzzing with a fuzzy, diseased sounding Sunno riff (that pretty much plays the whole way through), the band utilizes tabla and traditional percussion; with the unique vocal timbre of Rajkishen Narayanan and Indy Shome dual chanting overtop the entire thing. At first it grabs you, as the hypnotic, trancelike state of the music seeps deep into your soul, and the ebbing beauty of the vocal performance drags you further down into the translucent abyss, but it never seems to reach a destination. As stated earlier with meandering, there’s repetition that I love, and there’s the kind that loses me. Even with the transient acoustic touches in the background, and a seemingly full wall of sound, it goes on for too long. Nearly 16 minutes of run time, when I personally feel it could have been cropped at about the 10-minute mark (maybe even at the 8 or 9 minute mark). Don’t get me wrong, I can totally jive with the conscious altering sounds going on in this song, but it just drags on for too long and has me checking the watch at several key points where the head should be bobbing. I can appreciate the band’s meditative aspirations, but the entire song hints at a peak that never quite arrives. The sad thing is, it kind of sets the stage for the entire opus that follows. “Gloaming” is odd, tuneful drone, with constant chanting, ringing guitar lines and endless tabla. It barely changes throughout, and when it does, there’s no payoff. QE always had payoffs in the past for their extensive build-ups, or it made sense in the context of the album, or particular piece. I can honestly liken this disc to the second Beast in the Field record, Lechuguilla, another album that showed epic promise, but failed to deliver except in a few rare instances. I’ve actually gone on to appreciate that disc a bit more as a whole in the last few months, but I’m not so sure if a similar fate is in store for Kailash. If “Gloaming” shook things up a bit towards the end (cause I can’t deny that some of the stuff in this track is beautiful, even if it overstays its welcome by far too many minutes), I might be more forgiving, but it just sort of hammers away and doesn’t go anywhere. It’s ultimately forgettable, even if it does shimmer with a peaceful aura that can be refreshing one moment, and frustrating the next. It’s not like I’m saying, "Hey guys, get pissed off!" I don’t need 24 hours of aggression, I like peaceful tuneage as much as the next space cadet; it’s just that the past material was a journey, with a particular endpoint in sight. Here, I’m not feeling that. Where are the peaks and valleys? Where’s the rise and fall? Simply put, it’s nowhere to be found. We get the ebb, but someone stopped the flow further up the pipeline. Frustrating. Stripping down the number of collaborators, “The Vulture and the Creed” pairs Indy on guitar/vocals with solely Rajkishen (performing baul sarod, and voice), for a brief “sound byte” type track. Eh, since we haven’t been heading anywhere thus far, it’s hardly time for our sponsor’s brief, segue announcement. “Priest” actually sticks to the ribs a bit more, probably a track that’ll end up on a mix CD for late night drives. It’s hymnal, soundtrack quality could actually qualify for a Bernard Herrmann score for one of Ray Harryshausen’s classic fantasy, FX flicks. Good stuff that nails the repetition just right, and digs its way under the skin like a tick fiending for blood. About as haunting as stuff like this can get. Definitely puts some visions in my head of wandering lost catacombs looking for untold riches (hopefully, something that grants a shield of darkness…name that Harryshausen film, and win a prize). And then, we’re back to the same old, same old for the remainder of the album, atmospheric drone with promise that needs a roadmap to figure out where it’s headed. For 5 minutes I’m entranced, then the next 5 I’m looking around my room at other discs/records I’d rather be listening to. Never a good sign. Basically, this is a painful review to write. I can respect everything going on here, and I’ve got nothing but adulation for both Indy and AJR, and pretty much their whole body of work, both separate and combined. But, the sad fact about Kailash, is that it’s a glossy, exhausting work that reeks of effort and creativity, but sadly could have used a touch more thought when it comes to songwriting and song progression. If QE is making a full push for a sparser, atmospheric sound I’m all for it, but I’d like to see them inject a little life into it as well. As I said earlier, Kailashis all mystifying, entrancing ebb that lacks in flow and stark dynamics. It fails to captivate the way their best material thus far did, and boy does that trounce the score here. Give it a listen for yourself and decide, but I’m afraid I’ll be taking a pass on this one personally. ======================================== Sea of Tranquility By Ryan Sparks July 2010 You know how some music is heavy without actually being heavy? For example take a band like The Velvet Underground who weren't a heavy band musically, and yet there was always this inherently heavy 'vibe' present in their music. Well the latest album Kailash from drone merchants Queen Elephantine kind of falls into that kind of categorical description. Perhaps the ever present feeling of death permeating throughout this album has a lot to do with it because the title comes from the Himalayan Mountain on which the Destroyer lives in a constant state of mediation, in a deathless state. Armed with this knowledge the listener can do their best to try to prepare themselves mentally for the harrowing seventy minute ride that awaits them. Unlike their last full length release Surya, Kailash was not only recorded with a totally different lineup (guitarist / vocalist Indrayudh "Indy" Shome and vocalist Rajikishen Narayanan are the only holdovers here), but the group also seemingly opted for a more minimalist approach this time, although the hypnotic and ritualistic feel that was so present on that album is very much in effect here as well. It all begins with the absolutely hypnotic, droning, distorted guitars and chanting vocals featured on the fifteen minute plus epic "Search For The Deathless State". There's definitely no way back as no sooner does this song reach its conclusion before you're thrust headlong into the hazy eastern tinges of "The Gloaming", a song which features a heaping dose of buzzing sitar (or is that a tanpura?) , tablas for percussion and more chanting vocal weirdness. After a brief respite with an untitled instrumental the sonic curveballs keep coming with the atmospheric deathscapes and very abstract, layered vocals on "The Vulture & The Creed". While the track "Godblood" comes off as a bit of filler, it is bookended by two spectacular tracks "Priest" and Kailash's longest composition "Khora". Both of these tracks tread the same ground musically and yet there is someting mysterious about them which also set's them apart. In the end Kailash might be a lot to swallow in one sitting, even though the band has once again done a great job of creating another epic work of trance inducing, eastern flavored doom, which may or may not even be the best way to describe their music. I have to be honest, unlike their last album Surya which hit me immediately, this one took awhile to grow on me even after repeated listens over time. That being said, Kailash is definitely a worthy follow up and is in many ways probably more of a well rounded effort overall than its predecessor. If the doomy, abstract sounds of bands like Sunn O))) and Earth are up your alley then you should definitely look into giving Queen Elephantine a shot. ======================================== DeafSparrow March 2010 In my review of Surya I identified Queen Elephantine as a stoner doom band that could sonically be linked to Om. Actually, I consider Surya to be a superior recording than Om’s Pilgrimage. With Kailash, the comparison is no longer valid. Mostly, because Queen Elephantine has removed itself so far apart from the rock block that their songs no longer have any structure, keep a beat or just simply ‘rock’. Now, some may salivate at the mere mention of a stoner band that’s gone experimental or pure drone. Well, the results here are not that thrilling. Frankly, Kailash sounds like one long ass excruciating intro and that sucks. Kailash picks up where Surya left off. “Search for the Deathless State” is actually quite auspicious. With its droning minimalism, stoner vibrations and trance-like vocals, this could be the perfect opening for a great record. Things go south fast though and by second song “Gloaming” we are treated to the kind of Indian folk that would make The Love Guru proud. No shit. If I want to listen to regional music I rather go straight to the source. Bands do well by spicing things up and by looking for outside influence, but the minute they offer twelve minutes of chants, table and sitar they might as well just change monikers and light up the Nag Champa. It’s not badly played, it just isn’t very good. “The Vulture and the Creed” is an actual intro. Only Queen Elephantine forgot to shorten it and place it in the beginning. It goes on for over eight minutes and sounds like it was recorded in Robin Williams’ head. Seriously. Lots of ridiculous goofy shit going on. Isolated strings. Special effects. Voices and echoes. I get the feeling that it is really uncomfortable in there. Or maybe I just don’t get it. Unfortunately, Kaylash never comes back from this parallel dimension. The rest of the tunes float aimlessly between pretentious and simplistic ‘experimentation’ (actually, I call it ‘killing time’) and half baked ideas that never come to fruition. Kaylash is ultimately really boring and pointless. Poorly executed. A total shame. ======================================== RockSellOut By Nathan November 2009 Your Brand New Eastern Drone Gods Since Nick (the bastard) beat me to the punch to review the new Mercury Program album by literally an hour and a half, I'll do this instead. I was literally on my way to this prestigious website to give a glowing, if somewhat reserved, review of Chez Viking. Nick, I've never met you, but you are a bastard. I was even going to make a crack about how it's been released in several vinyl colors. Jee-zus. But anyway, enough about my shortcomings and jelousy. Queen Elephantine, and their latest, Kailash. That's what this is about. If you like (or heard of) Ginunngagap, Warduna, or Black Math Horsemen, you're going to love this. Psychedelic drone folk headphone happiness. If Hinduism turns out to be true, and their version of the end of the world starts happening, this is the soundtrack. Formed in Hong Kong in 2006 by some dude named Indrayudh Shome (the only remaining original member) and somehow currently based in NYC, this band knows how to slow-burn. Seven songs over a little more than 71 minutes. This is the sort of thing that makes me happy. The opener, "Search for the Deathless State" and track six, "Godblood" are the only songs containing anything resembling vocals, but the comparison is stretched, as is more chanting than anything else. Songs float along, never exactly ambient, but not quite picking up a beat either. Excellent tabla drumming gives the side of me that loves Talvin Singh a reason to smile. There is one thing that drives me nuts, however. When this album was released, the average age of the band members was a measly 19. They started making music together when they were 16. When I was 16, I was jacking off in a Tool and Helmet rip off band with this guy. I stand to turn 31 in slightly more than a month. Pardon me while I vomit over my lack of progress. Surely this deserves better, but I'm bitter about being old. Only a 4.237 our of 5. Taking away my curmudgeon-ness, 4.9 out of 5. ======================================== Rico's Top 50 2009 Prog Albums Rateyourmusic.com Normally I abstain both from listening and judging metal-labeled music, and yet the "doom" tag here doesn't hold too much relevance. The structure of the album is in fact divided between the psychedelic drug and a much stronger oriental (raga) & par non-evolutive music soundwall. Significantly emotional are its hypnotizing parts, or the genuine collapse into darkness. First track has the sort of morbid narration from GYBE's F#a#. This is overall a deeply introverted, aesthetically locked work of art. ======================================== Foxy Digitalis By Daniel DeRogatis September 2009 Kailash is the mythical Himalayan peak on which, according to the Hindu religion, ‘the Destroyer dwells in the state of perpetual meditation…in the deathless state’. It is the guiding spirit and inspiration for the cassette-only (they’re planning to release a CD version) second album by New York’s spiritual stoner-doom drifters, Queen Elephantine. Their journey begins with “Search for the Deathless State”, a gargantuan drone-prayer with majestic, HUGE guitar riffs that churn lugubriously, hovering thick in the air instead of launching into a repetitive groove. The sumptuous heaviosity is surrounded by hand drum patterings, waves of swelling cymbals, and white-eyed chanting/singing. Awesome. After that epic beginning, things stumble a bit during “Gloaming” which is full of spoken-word poetry that I found a bit corny and distracting, but the tablas and sitar buzz combined with sparse drumming kept me intrigued. “The Vulture & the Creed” is the album’s highlight: a reverb-soaked, cavernous soundscape of disembodied string instruments and ghostly voices which are simultaneously eerie and beautiful. The vocals are going to be the deciding factor for most listeners. Aside from “Search…” and “Vulture…”, they wander just a bit too aimlessly and tunelessly during other parts of the album. That being said, there are still lots of very strong elements at work throughout. Side two has a bunch of cool, memorable moments: the warbly field recordings of tolling bells and chanting monks during “Priest”…the loose, snake-like, sinister bass groove of “Godblood”…and most notably, the interplay of acoustic guitar and luxurious tambura drone of “Khora”. All in all, there are plenty of interesting things going on here, and if they can tighten up and reel in the vocals a bit, Queen Elephantine has lots of room to grow and the potential to make excellent records in the future. 6/10 ======================================== Mishka Bloglin May 2009 If and when Shiva ever decides to rain down an Apocalypse, this will most assuredly be her soundtrack. The trek up Kailash is Eastern influenced Holy Mountain of atmospheric Doom Metal that will turn the skies black as the stars rain down around you… The seventh seal is revealed! And just as you’re ready to repent, lo and behold enters Brahma and Vishnu in the guise of the last two tracks, “Godblood” and “Khora” ruining what was a devastatingly good end of days. “Khora” is a decent end piece but most of “Godblood” ruins the momentum and keeps Kailash from being truly epic. Doh! Kailash has only ever been officially released on tape with no real release date set for other formats. But you’re all clever and im sure you can find a digital copy floating around somewhere. ======================================== Rottenmeats May 2009 This is a fuzzy muscle play of distorted dirge and Hindu atmospherics that easily embodies the slow majesty of bands like Earth, or to a lesser extent, Mono … but this is a rawer, far heavier brew, buckling the confines of the medium, so over-saturated that it almost struggles for definition. The instruments take on a scary dynamic, like a vibrating cloud of flies, distorted in the heat. It’s hard to avoid the magnetic pull of that turbine shackled hertz, or that accompanying tinsel soak from the cymbals, even the words seem to be dragging you through the dusty soil on mystic hooks. Something about skyscrapers blocking the sun, rivers of glass and footless aspirations to heaven…. drowsy words in the stoner buzz, as stray limbs scar the surface, delectable dislocations matching that beautiful murkiness of the cover art… but it really excels when everything is systematically pummelled, or when the vocal goes off on a devotional pilgrimage, and becomes a rich gravy of moan and clattering commune, coaxed into serpent shadows or stuffed into jackal skins… then it truly gets your appetite racing… You’d think this sort of transcendence couldn’t be sustained, until the second side bursts forward in explosive field recording, slipping easily into a menacing procession of wounded bass and drum kissed desertion … some lovely re-bounded chords are happened upon and stuck with, blooms alighting from the carcass, amp transformed into a deformed offspring slowly swallowed down stream – textural eye openers that chaff the inside of your skull in a sloth ache psych and trance-eaten sway, repetitive breathe spun. The tape cools off for the final two tracks in raga blisters, melodious wafers of drum, curling chants and sitar… peeling away the gloom in falling dew and hand spanned illumination. ======================================== The Obelisk By JJ Koczan April 2009 Psych-metal wunderkind Indy Shome, guitarist/vocalist of the Providence-by-way-of-New-York-by-way-of-Hong-Kong outfit Queen Elephantine and sometime label head of Concrete Lo-Fi Records, returns with his band’s second full-length to be released through a yet-undetermined imprint, Kailash. Named for the Himalayan peak on which Hinduism says resides Lord Shiva, the album was mastered by Billy Anderson, who joins the ranks of Sons of Otis and Elder (with both of whom Queen Elephantine has released splits) on the growing list of names associated one way or another with the band. With Shome on the experimental outing is vocalist Rajkishen Narayanan, former Agnosis/Tides Within bassist Andrew Jude Riotto, The Cutest Babyhead Ever multi-instrumentalist Brett Zweiman on tabla and other percussion and drummer Chris Dialogue, but contrary to what the personnel might suggest, Kailash relies mostly on a minimalist aesthetic, with few parts that would qualify as conventional doom. Instead, Shome and the band offer sparse, loosely-structured excursions into a spontaneous, improv-sounding creative dimension. There is obviously a plan, but it’s written down on 30 separate pieces of paper and it’s up to you to put them in the right order to find out what the hell it is. Take the hypobaric drone of opener “Search for the Deathless State,” which, led along the cliffside by a thick Riotto bassline, finds itself falling deep with a spoken word movement and slowly encompassing noise. At 15:39, it is a song almost entirely void of payoff — that is, if you sit through the whole thing expecting Sleep-style guitars to kick in and for Kailash to become an entirely different kind of Holy Mountain, you’re going to be disappointed — but the sense I get is they were going for unsatisfying in the traditional sense. His guitar leaves trails. That's how you know it's psychedelic.The first of Kailash’s several flirtations with vocal droning (aka “chanting”) pops up on “Gloaming,” but as multiple lines play off each other with “They’re keeping me from me” eventually emerging as the central lyric, the vocals sound dry and lacking the body some delay or reverb might provide. A more psychedelically effective approach is taken following the untitled interlude with the Lamp of the Universe-esque “The Vulture and the Creed,” which echoes itself into a mantra and further delves into the barrier regions of song. It is cavernous, and the transition from that into the slow acoustic blues repetition of “Priest” is aided by the moment of silence between the end of the one track and the start of the next. There are a lot of stylistic personalities showing themselves through Queen Elephantine, and though each one is pulled off ably, I can’t help but wonder if the band wouldn’t be better suited to finding a more cohesive sound and then working in outside elements, rather than fully changing pants for each track. Of course, with four of the seven songs over 10 minutes in length, each idea is given plenty of time to go where it will (or won’t), but taken as a whole, Kailash needs to be something more than long to accomplish the goals Queen Elephantine are setting for it. Bit off too much? Maybe. A 72-minute album is a challenge most bands wouldn’t undertake, let alone one so young. “Godblood” brings back the chanting, blending it with the acoustics of the preceding cut in scorned moans again delivered dryly to their detriment. Since the band recorded Kailash and Shome mixed it, the assumption is that everything on it is purposeful, however improvised it may or may not have been at the time. They had the final cut. And where Earth conveys emptiness through unrelenting repetition of minor chords and expanding soundscapes, parts of Kailash just feel like they have pieces missing. An exception would be the sweet-sounding closer “Khora,” which reminds me of the tapes The Beatles made in India or something Ben Chasny might try with Six Organs of Admittance. Over the course of its 16 minutes, the song takes a natural evolution into an appropriately minimalist finish. The record as a whole probably would have benefited from the outside opinions of a producer (and it would be another name to attach to the project), but Kailash presents some strong ideas and definitely makes known Queen Elephantine’s willingness to tread unfrequented paths. It’s a two-way process, but for anyone willing to give the time — at least 216-288 minutes — it’s one that can lead down any number of satisfying roads. ======================================== Doom Metal Alliance By Derek March 2009 I started listening to Queen Elephantine (previously featured on DMA Sampler Vol. 2) early last year after discovering their split with Sons Of Otis. There sound was fuzz drenched psych heavy stoner doom. So I must say I was rather suprised when I heard QE's second full length album. Rock and metal have been replaced with drone and ambience, and left to couple with the doom and psych. The end result being some of the craziest psych this side of Alan Watts' album "This Is It!" When I listen to this album, I cant help but hear soul searching. Indy if you didnt know was born in India. One of the first things you will hear is a heavy influence of what the common ear will recognize as East Indian folk music. Indy has told me that Kumar Gandharv (East Indian musician) was an influence. Since this conversation, I have realized that this influence has always been there. The songs average out at over 10 minutes each, and QE takes advantage of such long songs by creating natural progressions to the songs that without a doubt most people will miss out on as the songs are "boring" and not doom at all. Well, stop listening to bands like Earth if that is the case as Earth is the stand out comparison here. Not that they sound like Earth or anything. Its more just experiments with sound, creating a meditative approach to music. Think "Bees Made Honey" if it were recorded by the Beatles in India. Queen Elephantine has grown into their own with Kailash, but fear that it will be lost on many listeners. So let it be known that Enginear Billy Anderson mastered this piece of work, and Queen Elephantine is ready to unleash it on the world. ======================================== The Sleeping Shaman By Adam March 2009 Stoner droner mystics Queen Elephantine, the oft travelling Lords of (sonic) Lethargy, have produced yet another striking opus of snaking whirring trip rock (that isn't actually 'rock') that hums and glides through your addled brain like the dawning realisation that you are imprisoned in a cage of your own creation, from whence only you can free yourself. Garbled pseudo Buddhist ramblings aside, this is a new downloadable e-release (check their myspace page for details), recently mastered by Billy Anderson and waiting for a record label, that represents that exquisitely soporific QE sound, but dwelling in a more meditative dimension than the grand altered-state rock of previous album 'Surya'. What is immediately noticeable is the emphasis on the vocals. The wailing chants of opener "Search for the Deathless State" blend into the overall miasma of huge Earth-esque drone guitar, cymbal splashes and tabla flurries, which creates an expansive and sprawling sonic haze that rises like a deathbed mirage to envelop your nodding head and consequently dissolves your sense of ego in a hot sea of languid tranquility. Raj intones a fantastic piece of prose that beckons the closing of this monumental first track. In the hands of many musicians such a device would run a risk of sounding pretentious, but this man carries a vision and a conviction born of personal experience. "Gloaming" takes the Indian subcontinental influences even further with buzzing sitar drone, scattered tablas and vocals that bend and warp around one note like a bumble bee tied to a nail plunged into a table. The line "They're keeping me from me" (read what you will into it) is repeated over and over again as the track reaches its end. A short interlude of what sounds like a genuine sample of monks chanting in a temple gives way to the slow rising and eerie demon tainted soundscape of "The Vulture and the Creed", which along with the following track, "Priest", conjures up memories of very early Sonic Youth, Swans and the whole New York 'No Wave' scene. There is an experimental sparseness here and economy of sound that QE are only just beginning to explore, much to their artistic satisfaction. Perfect soundtrack music. "Godblood" follows with a similar feel to "Gloaming", ending with strangely unsettling pipes and slowly strummed acoustic chords. Last track "Khora" rises on a wave of droning vocals, sitar vibration and minimal percussion to close very quietly on just faintly blown pipes some fifteen minutes later. Thus ends this shimmering seventy minute long pilgrimage from spiritual East to materialistic West and back again. I suspect many lovers of the orthodox 'rock format' will tire of the meandering nature of this album quite quickly, but those of you with a yearning towards the more experimental may lap this up for what it is, a fascinating collection of pieces based upon the musical and philosophical influences of the cultures that have fermented for so many millennia from both the fertile soils of the Indus Valley and from the ancient cloud ringed kingdoms of the Himalayas, but played by musicians who have a deep appreciation for the droning aesthetics of classic bands like Earth and Sleep. QE are quite unique, but do benefit a liberal and patient ear, so if you own a pair of these, download it. I did feel tempted to end the review with a rather cheap and ethnocentric reference to fancying a curry, but I resisted. ======================================== Gradations of Morbidity By Chris Naughton March 2009 Named after the mythical Himalayan peak on which ‘The Destroyer’ dwells in the state of perpetual meditation, Kailash is the second full length record from New York/Providence based Queen Elephantine, and going off the perceptions of their recorded past it comes as quite a shock. Given they’ve been involved in splits with bands like the Sons of Otis, one would expect ‘Kailash’ to be a fuzzed out stoner/spacey riff driven affair, when the opposite is in fact the case. As a whole piece of work ‘Kailash’ is actually quite a mellow, experimental take on drone doom (although it’s difficult to say whether it’s even that!). Take opening track Search For The Deathless State for example which sets out the s t y l e for the rest of the album by using an interesting mix of minimal, ritualistic, trance inducing guitar drone over laid with interesting choral vocals and the odd spurt of mad ‘free’ percussion and creepy noises. As if that wasn’t stylistically weird enough, they also manage to incorporate dreamy, Slint-esque spoken word sections into the mix to their interesting ‘minimal drone’ formula. With that in mind it becomes clear that vocal-led minimalism seems to have been a key feature in the writing of this album. The culmination of this vocal use is The Vulture & The Creed which is an interesting track that is based around vocal drone & noise-scapes, reminding at times of Attila Csihar’s performances on latter day sunn O))) releases interspersed with controlled, ambient, yet noisy guitar work. While remaining minimal the writing on this occasion never seems to lack interest and by the time the record progresses through to the metallic, industrial swirl of Priest and the Desert Sessions/QOTSA feel of Godblood the drift that is Khora comes in calmly to wrap up the proceedings. Kailash is one of those ‘mood’ records in the sense that; if you are in the mood for it then it will engross you in a 70+ minute landscape of experimental drone and if not then the repetitive nature of some of the structures and intra-song style may become a little tiresome. Alas, this is an interesting album with some nice ideas and is definitely one of the more interesting drone based albums to come out in a while, even if it is more like free-jazz-vocal-drift than your typical Earth tribute. But, maybe that’s its selling point. [7.5/10] ======================================== Abandon Ship Records April 2009 Originally hailing from Hong Kong, this New York-based group is bringing something entirely new to the table. Hypnotic eastern-tinged drones create the backdrop for their dark and brooding vocals. Creating something truly unique, and definitely the first of it's kind on Abandon Ship. Keep an eye out for more from Queen Elephantine in the coming months. Their future is bright, although their sounds may not be!
The Echo Motel There's nothing better
than finding a new band, especially
when that band is as good as Queen Elephantine. 'Surya' starts with a
sitar drone and ends with a 27 minute epic called 'Bison', an inspired
psychedelic dirge of a jam based around a fucking massive bass riff.
It's unfair to draw to comparisons to other bands (Queen Elephantine
have their own take on 'stoner' and 'doom'), but if Sleep, Om and Bong
are in your record collection, then you should definately make some
room for these guys. They've just released a live album on
Faunasabbatha, but it's limited to 70 copies so you better get yer
skates on... ======================================== Slays For Days Surya. It is the sound of
a million bison slowly marching
thier way towards the Great Stoning of the Outer Dark and the Infinite
Chill. There are no survivors save one half bison, half man. He takes
the Crown of Thunder and places it atop his head. He speaks and a
thousand snakes come out his mouth. The snakes eat each other up
causing a great void. The great bison king shoots a most righteous
fireball out of his hand into the void and his throne is formed. ======================================== Descargarte Todo QUEEN ELEPHANTINE resulta
interesante por varias razones. Una
de ellas es que procedan de Hong Kong –aunque el
año
pasado su líder se radicó en Nueva York (EE.UU.)
y
reformó la banda. Por otro lado, ellos han sabido aprovechar
las
posibilidades que da la Internet para ponerse en contacto con otros
grupos y sellos, lo que es ha permitido, en pocos años,
grabar
sendos discos “split” con bandas stoner / doom /
sludge
como ELDER y SONS OF OTIS, ambos con buena crítica, y
participar
de varias compilaciones. Pero ¿Cómo suena? Suena como un mantra hindú cantado por los hijos ilegítimos de BLACK SABBATH; suena como si un grupo de músicos de Woodstock hubieran sido secuestrados por ovnis, llevados al desierto y abandonados a su suerte con muchos discos de drone y doom. Su música es lenta y pesada, hipnótica, repetitiva, psicodélica y densa. A través de los cuatro primeros temas, se van alternando atmósferas más meditativas y viajeras –que coinciden con las canciones más cortas- con ambientes más pesados y de ritmo más marcado. Ello sin que se produzca un contraste, sino una suerte de progresión en la que pasamos de lo pesado de “Ramesses II” –de 16 minutos de duración- a la densidad hipnótica de “Kabir”. El punto complejo, el “elefante blanco” del disco, lo constituye el último tema,“Bison”. Ya conocen la historia del elefante blanco: el rey que quiere perjudicar a un súbdito sin que se note y le regala un paquidermo albo; el súbdito agradece el exclusivo regalo, pero queda en la ruina por el elevado coste de mantener al trompudo animal. Acá sucede algo parecido: grabar un tema de 27 minutos, incluso en un disco destinado a un público al que podemos sospechar que el consumo de ciertas sustancias les conduce a buscar sonidos “cósmicos” y pegados, no deja de ser un riesgo. De parecer un puro relleno, de ser el peor tema del disco, de bajar el nivel justo al final. De todas formas, este “Bison” logra salvarse si te das el tiempo de sumergirte en sus sonidos. Buen disco debut, en resumen; para fans de SLEEP, YOB, OM, la sicodelia y los sonidos experimentales. No se recomienda escuchar sin tiempo disponible. ======================================== Doom-metal.com Surya is a sun deity in
the pantheon of an eastern religion,
Hinduism I believe. This is the first time I have had the chance to
listen to this bands work but I had read some good reviews about them
on the internet. I can't say that I have an extensive collection of
psychedelic stoner/doom albums, but to me they sound like Reverend
Bizarre covering Hawkwind. That is a good thing, as it translates to
long, slow, intriguing compositions. ======================================== ProgArchives.com 'Surya' is QUEEN
ELEPHANTINE's first full album. The band
started in Hong Kong but is situated in New York City in the meanwhile.
Guitarist Indrayudh Shome represents the main constant of the group.
The songs have a heavy psych origin and as for the characteristic
expression they are also featuring a special hypnotic mood based on
doom and stoner rock leanings. Look onto the rays of the
new stoner sun rising ! ニューヨークの若きサイケデリックロックバンド、
Queen
Elephantineの１stフルアルバム。元々は香港で結成されたバンドらしい（wiki)。Sons of
Otisとスプリットを出していたので、名前をご存知の方も多いと思います。アマゾンで取り扱いがないのでATHにて購入。 ======================================== Sea of Tranquility Imagining the earth as a vast, scorched, barren wasteland, inhibited by large, lumbering prehistoric creatures might give you a bit of a mental picture of what you're in for musically on this massive sounding release Surya from an outfit that goes by the name of Queen Elephantine, currently based out of New York City. Recorded just over a year ago in Hong Kong, Surya is just now seeing a proper CD release after previously only being available digitally and through a self issued CD-R. However you want to classify the music made by these four promising young musicians and we could use such typical words as stoner, doom, psych, sludge etc… the fact is this 5 song disc is an epic and sprawling collection of kick ass jams designed to penetrate the thickest cranium. The world of Queen Elephantine begins appropriately enough with the song named after their creators. This track commences with the hypnotic droning sound of a tanpura, before the thick, throbbing bass kicks in and light percussion along with the chant style vocals take over. The ritual has indeed begun. "Ramessess II" starts almost the same way with more droning tanpura, (in fact this instrument serves as an anchor for four out the five tracks on Surya) before bassist Daniel Quinn slams out another absolutely killer bass line. Before you know it the beast has lumbered off with guitarist Indrayudh (Indy) Shome in tow, providing more chanted vocals to match the equally colorful, psychedelic textures of his guitar playing. This monster which clocks in at an exhausting sixteen and half minutes is nothing short of pure, primal sludge that goes for broke and eventually threatens to self destruct by breaking into an all out freak out towards the end. Next up is "Kabir" which begins with light percussive touches and a slinky bass line, sounding briefly like a darker, murkier version of Sabbath's "Planet Caravan" before the tension gradually builds and morphs into something much more menacing. While the majority of the music on Surya could easily be dismissed as being fairly repetitious, I have to admit that this was initially a concern of mine after the first few spins. However, with more listens I came to appreciate the time it takes for these improvised jams to fully unfold. The compositions on Surya have such a fabulously hypnotic quality to them, primarily due to these drawn out and repetitive progressions, that the lines quickly blur from one track to the next. As if the band had intended to save the best for last, the final two tracks "Plasma Thaw" and "Bison" add up to an almost forty minute, unrelenting dose of pure ominous sounding ultra-heaviness. Out of the two "Plasma Thaw" is certainly the groovier track and probably the fastest on the album as far as tempo is considered. Straight out of the introductory count in, the band immediately locks into a super tight groove and then spends the next ten minutes carving through the murky fog. The hard hitting drums and furious percussion work really propels this one into the stratosphere. "Bison" on the other hand is a completely different ball of wax though. Expanding to almost thirty minutes this composition is a prime example of just how adept these guys are at crafting, slow, brooding songs that utilize the tension and release method to sheer perfection. Surya is an extremely impressive debut effort and one that will keep listeners enthralled from beginning to end. If your musical tastes run towards the sounds of early Sleep, Earth or even elements of Om , then Queen Elephantine should be able to comfortably secure a place somewhere between them on your CD shelf. ======================================== Heavy Planet Album of the Day ======================================== The Sleeping Shaman It is dusk upon the river Ganges. Your gap year has prematurely come to an end because you are sooooooo stoned on some killer grass you bought earlier from an entirely naked man covered in cattle shit, that you are utterly convinced that you will never ever move again. This is the music you are now hearing. Rippling sitars, snaking bass, deft percussion, distant vocals and warm and heavy electric guitars. It feels magical, unearthly, intangible, spiritual. You feel impossibly sick. It's going to be a long night. You should have listened to your mother and stayed in Grimsby. A full length self released album by this rare treat of an underground band, recorded in Hong Kong in 2007 and released earlier this year, and clocking in at a fittingly lengthy sixty six minutes. First track, 'Queen Elephantine' is built upon the punctuating repetition of an ominous and super fuzzed out bass riff. Gentle singing and flecks of guitar, sitar and percussion put shreds of meat upon rough hewn bones. It's a promisingly psychoactive opener, drifting like an abandoned boat. 'Ramesses II' continues this limp limbed journey. Danny Quinn's bass is the only aggressive element at work here, loud in the mix, boldly distorted and played with concentrated attack. All other sounds, including Indy Shome's soft yearning semi-chants, are at once peripheral and central. Like all the best drug music, it just depends on what YOU choose to focus on. After the ten minute mark the jamming gets free and loose and noisier, and then dies to a lurch, the skilful drums of Michael Scott Isley taking command and changing tempo, hitting hard on the fills, the whole band picking up urgency and power, ending in a climax of numb exaltation to the magic of a world long since dead. Paralysis ensues with the lilting stoner riff of 'Kabir' that coils out and stretches off into the sunset until Indy breaks into a glistening instrumental. No singing on this one, just four men jamming around a cluster of notes, heads nodding in blissful unison. 'Plasma Thaw' continues the jam. Half chanted vocals float up through the air, yet again everything pin pointed by the driving bass riff. The drums are busy in the background, adding a certain urgency to this track. The last track is 'Bison', a great sludgy semi-instrumental dirge that moves away from their usual eastern influenced riffs and instead plows a more discordant avant-rock furrow, gently nodding away as the bass belches out minimal notes, sounding more 'western' than 'eastern'. This is also a more sparse affair than the previous tracks, with plenty of time given to space within the song, but unfortunately never really achieves the lazy yet focused momentum or fluid exoticism of the rest of the album. Out of all the tracks this is the most experimental and the least successful, and, at nearly thirty minutes long, feels like it could have been left off. QE's sound is languid, stoned and sensuous, evocative of the non-western environment in which much of it was no doubt conceived. I, for one, can't help but dig their murky lo-fi production because a). it sounds like they recorded it in a rotting Cambodian temple, and b). you can't really pin down their attractively weird, amorphous sound, which kind of gives QE the X-factor lacking in much contemporary 'rock' music. Incidentally, I'd like to see these lot on X-factor, jamming in front of Cowell, staring hard at the audience through a dense fug of marijuana smoke. ======================================== Terrascope A heady mixture of eastern strings and heavy bass sounds, Queen Elephantine, take a trip into the mystic on their album “Surya”, chanted vocals mixed low making you listen closely, the music spiralling around you. Surely music for deep meditation, the slow and languorous feel is maintained, even when the band crank it up such as on the hypnotic and lengthy “Ramesses II”. Final track “Bison” is a Hapshash meeting The Serpents, a 27 minute tumble through space and time, the primitive feel of the piece adding to the mystery. ======================================== Grey Day SOBRE LA BANDA: ME GUSTA: ME DISGUSTA: MEJORES TEMAS: ULTIMAS PALABRAS: ======================================== Ondalternativa.it "Surya"rappresenta il passo mediatico dall'esistenza al letargico divenire dell'impeto umano che racchiude in cinque soli pezzi l'ultimo album dei Queen Elephantine. Un gruppo di cinque esploratori del mondo della heavy psichedelica. Un lungo cammino dell'underground newyorkese moderno. Il disco registrato nella visionaria Hong Kong rappresenta la giusta interpretazione odierna del concetto di musica catartica e purificatoria,la quale conduce l'uomo ad un vero e proprio circolo violento a tratti dolce e liberatorio,a tratti sconvolgente quasi tutto il turbine della coscienza umana. Un vero e proprio space jam di effetti sonori,protagonista sempre lo stesso serpente pronto a mordersi la coda. Seppur le melodie rimangano pressochè e costantemente le medesime,risulta un vero e proprio rito mistico dalle sinfonie viziose.gruppo. Un viaggio tra etniche percussioni in un lento e soffice "bass groove" dedicato all'intera naturalezza che è in grado di possedere solo chi,in virtù di quell'anima musicale dominata dal mistero per la vita,può udire il suono.Un'intera melodia vocale avvolta da un intero "drone" non cambia,è sempre uguale nella sua durata,e pare così strano come possa catturarci e succhiarci in quello strato di suoni che sovrapponendosi l'uno sull'altro ci conduca ad una luce in cui la fase iniziatica ricorda parecchio l'effetto degli Om in "At Giza". Il ritmo ipnotico del basso,accompagnato dalla forza austera e solenne della sezione percussionistica,caratterizza,finanche elevare,il suono della seconda traccia dell'album:"Ramesess II".Il basso volume vocale,grazie al tono oscuro e profondo,espande un' eco tetra sull'atmosfera tutta del pezzo:una coltre di male,leggera e trasparente,sembra posarsi su esso.Lo svolgimento è piacevole;la chitarra sembra riuscire ad andare oltre ordini e leggi prestabilite ed immutabili;in una tempesta caotica in cui il tutto si risolve.Il pezzo apre la fase psichedelica dell'intero album in uno spazio rock rumoroso ed eccitante.Soprattutto alla fine,quando tutto è stanco e la voce ristagna un'eco dolorosa,i suoni giungono all'estrema lacerazione. "Kabir"è la terza rappresentazione desertica dell'album. Un altro esercizio a ripetizioni che scattano come arma sull'intera e avvolgente melodia. Una danza tra movimenti a volte rapidi a volte più tranquilli. Un vero e proprio groove circle tra doppi colpi di percussioni e tamburi,i quali fanno di questo piccolo kit di tagliente artiglieria un'arma che scova nella profondità più ricca della sensibilità umana. Una visione abbastanza "peyote" che ricorda le criptiche note blues dei Kyuss. Un suono che ci riporta al deserto dei Mammatus,o addirittura all'effervescente temperamento mistico dei Comets On Fire. Il catartico rito di liberazione si plasma,ed ecco "Plasma Thaw".Rivela il lato più pesante e toccante dei QE. Una serpentina bufera che si perpetua in una lunghezza assai epica e trascendentale. Un tortuoso gioco di riffs pesanti che ricordano parecchio una gerusalemmica visione musicale ritrovabile nel giro dell'Holy Mountain degli Sleep.Una nebbia,una foschia mistica che porterebbe ad un'unica direzione,verso la concezione atomica della purezza del tempo.Non è facile poter comprendere quanto sia possibile entrare a far parte di una concezione cosi sbandata e pronta a colpire i punti più delicati dell'essere umano.E'una corda a filo teso,che vibra muovendosi in un'aria arida,che solo il deserto è in grado di poter decimare. Il disco termina sulle note di "Bison" lo sciamanico pezzo contributo ai vecchi collaboratori della band canadese "Sons Of Otis".Il suono è distorto,ritorna sempre il giro ipnotico in attesa di dare facili risposte al misterioso fascino che avvolge l'intera esperienza.Bisogna trascendere il tutto e trovarsi in un'altra dimensione. E'un buco nel vento in cui l'ordinaria fenomenologia non è in grado di accedere. Lo stato dei riffs anche qui si ripropone con un salto nel buio in grado di poter svegliare quelle zone paludose e oscure che invadono la mente. Il loro debutto,grazie alla realizzazione artistica di quest'album (assieme,ovviamente,alle grafiche delle copertina dell'album) mi hanno molto impressionata e resa particolarmente partecipe di questi enormi paesaggi psichedelici. In queste rumorose pianure in cui si disperde un suono incessante che libera la mente da quel castigo in cui persevera e agisce silenziosa. Consiglio quest'album a tutti coloro che hanno bisogno di una boccata d'aria proprio per sentirsi liberi e sani nella genuinità nei confronti della vita. Per coloro che considerano la musica un fenomeno capace di trascendere l'esperienza ordinaria delle cose. Un giusto modo per risvegliarsi e ritrovare se stessi. ======================================== KvltSite I remember when Jayaprakash heard Om for the first time last year without prior knowledge of Sleep's existence, he said the grooves reminded him a lot of early Pink Floyd. I frankly never saw it that way but here's a band that's doing something a lot more like he'd mentioned. Queen Elephantine is a band, having its origins in Hong Kong and now based in NYC, consisting of four teens making a name for themselves in their local scene. They also recently put out a split with the mighty Sons of Otis. I've not heard that yet, but after a few thorough listens of their self-released debut album Surya, they certainly deserve a record label to fund the production, help them put out a fully packaged album (this comes in a CD-R with a cool sleeve) and render them the distribution. The sound is somewhat easy to describe if you're already familiar with what I said in the first paragraph. Queen Elephantine does extended psychedelic jams with unsophisticated repetitive grooves. They have this tanpura sound to go with their chanty vocal lines and the fuzzed out psychedelic jams. Warming up with a brooding 5 note doom groove over 5 minutes, the song 'Queen Elephantine' doesn't go all crazy with the jams yet. It all peaks on 'Ramesses II', the sixteen minute monster song that's pretty much the centerpiece of the album. I especially dig the bit that sounds like a dirged out Led Zep riff. 'Kabir' is all about this one long hypnotic riff and the way the rest of the band play around it for a good 6 minutes. 'Plasma Thaw' is the most Sleep-sounding song on the album with a monstrous doom riff and some wild drumming. After some trippy sounds that made the speakers jar, the band eventually get back to the thundering main riff and jamming some more before ending the song. The twenty six minute epic 'Bison' eventually draws the album to a close but not before intentionally rambling with help from a rock-steady riff, spacey sounds and noisy drones. This would be their most unique song on the album. Good album, though the production needs a lot of work. They're working on a new album and are still hunting for a label to put it out. In the mean time, you can get a copy of this CD-R for cheap or download their latest EP for free from their website. It sounds heavier and more evolved than Surya from the one listen I gave it, so go for it by all means. ======================================== Get Off My Elevator If I say a band from China, what would you think? Don't think my friend, that's why we are here, for you don't have to think. This Queen Elephantine is a rare "a la" Colour Haze experimental fully instrumental thing...., another "must have" from the GOME fellows, stay around. ======================================== Deaf Sparrow Zine This is a great record. And in the methodical, stellar, emotional and astral plane, Surya is to me as good as Om’s latest Pilgrimage. It is also rougher, less detailed, choppier, looser, more rustic, more excessive, fatter, and longer. Surya drones spliff in hand and entrances in a deeper and more monotonous fashion, but with that approach it also holds you tighter to its bass-centric core. For the whole duration of Surya, this New York quartet (that’s where they reside but Queen Elephantine came together in Hong Kong) seems to channel the post Sleep mantra of Al Cisneros and the guitar tonalities of a pubescent Josh Homme. Of the first one they have taken (some might say stolen, but this is good so fuck it) the sense of jamming, the free flowing vibe that carries good stoner doom outside of rock parameters, and from the latter they have taken the exact tuning (especially during the solos) that made of Kyuss’ such legends. Queen Elephantine have studied the stuff, and as premeditated as Surya may be, the 5 songs that comprise it are a plain lesson on how to bend two or three notes into innumerable shapes. Surya is massive in all fronts; recorded in the land of Jackie Chan it serves to its advantage that its lo fi qualities add a timeless warm tone to the whole recording. Wise move, as that sound adds to the band’s fat ass bottom. And it needs the weight as the songs extend over ten, and in the case of “Bison” , the thirty minutes. These tunes are at times insisting and moving at others groovy and always psychedelic. If they stay together, Queen Elephantine might have a great future. Not sure how old these guys are, but pictures on their MySpace present a teenage looking quartet. And a generous one at that; while they are recording their new album (Kailash) Queen Elephantine is offering a two-song EP for free download at their MySpace page. Yeah, it’s two songs and together they total over forty minutes so no whining allowed. ======================================== Organ Magazine ALBUM OF THE WEEK ======================================== Born In Blood Forums 2008 Albums to check out: ======================================== HeavyHell.pl W zasadzie ta sama liga co tegoroczny Jex Thoth. Równie? ho?dowanie przesz?o?ci, podobne ?rodki, jednak istot? tej muzyki s? inne za?o?enia. Ju? od pierwszego, i?cie stapletonowskiego, orientalnego drone'u i wej?cia sekcji wiadomo, ?e b?dzie transowo, psychodelicznie. Czu? ducha Amon Duul II, aczkolwiek tu jest wi?cej transu, mniej kombinacji... Na wst?pie odradzam s?uchanie myspace, gdy? te wa?ki si? powoli rozkr?caj? i w?a?ciwie ms nie daje odpowiedniego pogl?du na spraw?. Mam takie dziwne wra?enie, ?e gdyby to doci??y?, to momentami brzmia?oby jak Neurosis Mruga Generalnie warto pos?ucha? takiego Ramesses II aby zobaczy? jak w ostatniej minucie robi si? przepi?kna d?wi?kowa burza. A? mi sie Acid Mothers Temple przypomnia? Mruga Przyjemna, poprawna rzecz. Takie 7/10. Wydali to na CDR - 7,50 $ z wysy?k?. My?l?, ?e warto sie zainteresowa?. ======================================== Cloud Magoon Ever heard about people that take drugs to make music to take drugs to? (Yeah! I know it´s almost the same as the album title that SPACEMEN 3 gave one of their splendid albums back in the days). For me QUEEN ELEPHANTINE - SURYA embodys that precise impression on me, regardless if they take drugs or not this is one piece of heavy-psychedelia. But i would also call it easylistening because of the reason that it isent any traces of aggression in the music. It feels like a laidback jamsession perfect for deep meditation. The riffs are so intense, come in waves together with a extremely relaxed rhytms, the vocals are mellow and delivers just enough to push the songs further, it´s pure, organic and gives me a rush of pure wellbeing! This album really fits the meaning of "MEDITATION WITH MEDICATION". NEXT LISTENING IS GOING TO BE WITH BONG IN HAND! ======================================== Stonerrock.com Best described as a sprawling psychedelic space jam, Surya is the full-length debut of Queen Elephantine and a crushingly impressive follow-up to recent split-albums with Sons of Otis and Elder. Queen Elephantine's formidable contributions to those records were weighty works themselves, but a mere sampling of what they could do on their own. Surya's five tracks stretch out to over an hour, as the band lives up to its name and presents a perfect soundtrack to the unwieldy march of a mystical elephant caravan across the celestial plains. They melt down the sounds of Black Sabbath, Sleep, Hawkwind, Pink Floyd, early Monster Magnet, and a variety of other influences into a cosmic swamp all their own, populated by droning numbers like the self-titled lead off track and lumbering epics such as the 16-and-a-half-minute "Ramesses II," which rumbles along almost religiously with its chanted lyrics and smoky atmosphere until the pace picks up for its swirling climax. The Middle Eastern influence of the instrumental "Kabir" provides a trippy interlude before "Plasma Thaw" swings in on a monstrous groove reminiscent of the usual suspects from the '70's and doesn't let up, definitely the catchiest song on the album. "Bison" closes the record at a mammoth 27 minutes and 24 seconds, an expansive sonic journey that never gets boring or monotonous. The layers upon layers of hypnotic rhythms and molasses riffs, enhanced by the jammed-out feeling throughout Surya should please fans of bands like Sons of Otis, Mammatus, Acid Mothers Temple, Ufomammut, and Om. The band is still in search of a record label to release the album as a physical entity, rather than its current digital format, but Queen Elephantine won't be denied for long as they continue their trek to the throne of heavy space-rock royalty. ======================================== Doomed To Be Stoned In A
Sludge Swamp The elephant trudges on and on, devastating all in it's path... ======================================== Rompiendo Huesos Queen Elephantine son uno
de los secretos mejor guardados del
underground Stoner/Doom que poco a poco empiezan a salir a la luz. ======================================== Hellride
Music/Stonerrock.com Queen Elephantine is a group of young explorers in the world of heavy psychedelia, and ‘Surya’ is their first full-length, coming hot on the heels of various split releases and such in the past year or two. ‘Surya’ is a long, contemplative trip into the world of inner visions, a journey in which the devotional merges with the visionary to stake out a unique corner of the musical underground. ‘Surya’ begins with ‘Queen Elephantine,’ a lurching, meditational drone with plenty of heavy, distorted bass; a recipe the group uses to its advantage throughout the album. The song builds very slowly, offering visions that are somehow relaxed yet filled with anxiety, bringing to mind a space voyage with a crash landing on a far planet, where the alien sands drift quietly over blurry shapes both bizarre and sinister. ‘Ramesses II’ is a desert mirage of jerky military rhythms and monks offering devotional chanting that builds into the wails of lost souls. ‘Plasma Thaw’ is more rawkin’, while the 27+ minute ‘Bison’ is as thunderous as its namesake, with leaving-the-rails blues-based thrashing reminiscent of English cult doom/sludge outfit Ramesses. This tune pushes Queen Elephantine territory out further, with various plodding sludgy riffs creating a claustrophobic blues hell colonized by nasty Tibetan demons of every des c r i p tion. Lovers of heavy psychedelic doom or drone as manifested by groups as wide-ranging as Sleep, Acid Mother’s Temple, Mammatus, YOB, and even ‘Saucer’-era Floyd should climb aboard with these young musicnauts. It’s not a comfortable or easy trip by any means, but it will reward your (lysergic) attention. ======================================== Prognotfrog.com OKEY!!! Some days ago we recived an e-mail with a link with a band that was so heavy that I couldn't wear headphones while I was listening caus it would be hard to hold my head up. It sounds like OM or Sleep but with 5ives speed. But a lot more psychadelic. It's really hard to compare with something cause these guys sounds really new and fresh. Their first full length album is a limited edition so get it now before someone else do it! ======================================== Hellride Music The Queen Elephantine story continues to grow with this limited edition CDR of their upcoming debut full-length “Surya”. QE visionary Indy Shome started out this project in Hong Kong (where this album was recorded) but has since crossed the Atlantic to find residence in New York. It is there that he will begin to carve his mark across the United States with QE which now boasts a new line-up that features Andy Jude Riotto (Agnosis, Tides Within) on bass alongside Chris Diaz who pounds the skins and Rajkishen Narayanan being responsible for vocals and noise. This current QE roster will be embarking on an upcoming weekend tour that will hit Delaware, Virginia and Pennsylvania, so what better time to get yourself acquainted with this album! The album was recorded by the older line-up and features 5 new cuts from this psychedelic behemoth. Much like their split mates Elder, they are seeking representation to get this disc out there. Honestly if you’ve got a label, I say pick both of these phenomenal acts up as a package deal and go to town! QE boasts a sound that gravitates largely towards expansive, psychedelic rock that also incorporates doom, stoner rock and drone into its all encompassing tapestry. The hypnotic, repetitive riffs literally float above a cloudy fortress of overdriven bass lines and atmospheric drumming. Vocals are still mostly in the chanted, slightly sung ballpark and they have only gotten better as well. The sucking vacuum created by opener, “Queen Elephantine” gets things started out on a very trippy foot. Light, tribal percussion pulsates softly beneath the dense bass groove and ethnic drone that is topped off with spacious, overlapping vocal melodies that all combine into a mesmerizing mix. The song really never changes up drastically throughout its duration but it is the layered sounds and how they combine with each other that make it so memorable. The plodding, “Ramesses II” is a slow-burning number that is just over 16 minutes long. I actually pulled out the split with Elder to make sure I’m not going batty but this version is not the same one that was on the split. I’m not sure if it is directly involved with any of the four parts of “Ramesses” on that split but maybe I’m going crazy. In any case this song is an awe-inspiring piece of work that builds on a strong drum and bass foundation with deeply chanted vocals in the beginning that open up into more traditionally sung vocals later on in certain places of the track. The guitar work builds nicely throughout; unfolding leisurely while becoming increasingly more psychedelic by the second. The track also boasts an appropriately bombastic finale that seems to stop and start several times before exploding with noisy space-rock and distant vocals that tie everything together nicely at the very end. The desert baked groove of “Kabir” follows next and is another exercise in using repetition as the ultimate weapon. The track maneuvers its way around a solid, continuous groove that dances between louder moments and quieter, trancelike textures. The double shot of percussion that features both drums and back-up artillery creates a rich depth to the song that wouldn’t have been entirely there had only a traditional kit been employed. The psychedelic guitar leads sound like Kyuss lost on a peyote vision quest as the bass provides the necessary blues injected rumble. A cryptic sample ends this instrumental piece on an especially barren note. Seriously, this song melds the desert feel of Kyuss with a great spacey template employed by the likes of past greats like Camel or Caravan tempered by the more modern effervescence of Comets on Fire and Mammatus. “Plasma Thaw” brings out a bit of the heavier, doom-y side of QE. It is another epic length track that builds on a looping groove that features a heavier than thou riff that is serpentine in its winding heaviness. I feel a bit of Sleep in this one for sure. It has the long drawn out qualities of the “Jerusalem” era but manages to find a more sizeable groove in the vein of “Sleep’s Holy Mountain”. An arid midsection casts a mystical haze over which possible direction the song might head before they slam down on you with a thunderous riff one last time. The drumming on this one is particularly hard-hitting and the overall crush factor is at an all time high for these Elephantine lads as they set out to decimate you with sheer atomic weight. The sprawling, “Bison” brings this disc to a close and it is somewhat in the vein of their gigantic contribution to the Sons of Otis split. The song wanders in a steadfast, deliberate manner with a foreboding mess of distorted, droning chords that lock into a hypnotic shuffle that isn’t in any hurry to give you the easy answers to its mystery. There are a few shifts in sound and the overall effect lulls you into a comatose, dreamlike state where the distorted riffs bounce around the catacombs of your mind. This is a great debut record from QE. I was very impressed by their two splits and just like Elder, they have grown by leaps and bounds which is perfectly illustrated on this debut record. These songs are huge, psychedelic landscapes that you can get lost wandering forever amongst their vast plains of noise, space-rock and doom. Fans of the really heady, space jams would do well to check out QE. This is an awesome disc and hopefully someone will wise up and release this and the new Elder album. In the meantime, you can pick up a copy of this CDR until a label steps forth and delivers the goods. I can’t wait to see these guys in December is all I know based on the strength of everything I’ve heard so far.
Crucial Blast The first part of their set is the three-part "Ramesses The Second/The Weapon Of The King Of Gods / Ramesses The Fourth", which starts with droning guitar rumble and murky down tuned doom riffage, rippling waves of black amplifier noise coursing across a blasted sonic wasteland for a minute before the drummer finally kicks in. The song lurches into this muddy, narcoleptic drugdoom dirge that sounds like something Sleep could have recorded after communally downing a bucketful of benzos. The music is seriously slow and tranced-out, stoned chanting vocals rising up in the background, a slow-motion riff-ritual winding around deep bass guitar tones that sometimes seem to emulate the sound of a Rhodes. At around the thirteen minute mark, it starts to break down into a brief, furious percussive jam with tabla joining the drums within a storm of howling feeedback, then reforms into another sprawling free-psych jam as the third section kicks in, the tabla now out in front with both percussionists slipping into some immensely funky and hypnotic polyrhythmic grooves, the guitar spreading even further out into buzzing raga-like drones. The band keeps getting more and more zoned out, until theu eventually find their way out of the fug back into the lumbering elephantine doom, which at the end becomes even more aggressive and crushing. The second half of the disc is a piece called "Down In The Valley" that opens with the same buzzing cloud of raga drone, introducing rumbling guitar sludge after a moment, and then starts to move forward into a droning mono-chord dirge, surrounded with feedback hum and dark drift, joined with more delirious chanting and moaned singing. It gets into a Burnt Hills/Sleep mode of stoner psych heaviness that gets more diffused as the band sprawls out into a minimal dreamlike fog of static rumble drawn across tribal rhyhtms, and a final black riff that crawls through a fogbank of cosmic noise. I definitely dug this disc, and now need to track down their various other releases, which include splits with Elder and Sons Of Otis. Fans of those two band as well as the likes of Mammatus, Sleep, Electric Wizard, the current Meteorcity roster, and any lysergic tribal heaviness, check these guys out! ======================================== Faunasabbatha Heavy riffs and dark
nihilistic atmospheres in a world of
psychedelic violence. The absolute slowest, heaviest doom imaginable
like molten lava flowing down a mountain. Slow yet unstoppable,
consuming everything in its path... YATRA ..and... TO TARTARUS (UNRELEASED
7") Spirit
of Metal 20/20 In
the Summer of 2008, Hong-Kong based Indrayudh
Shome, front-man and founding member of QE, temporarily resettled in
New York City, USA for reasons of study. This brought along great
changes for the band, which had started out back in 2006 as a Hong-Kong
high school outfit, at that time the band members averaged 16 years of
age! ======================================== Ritual
Room Hopefully you've heard the mindbending Queen Elephantine release "Kailash" by now, but reguardless if you have or if you haven't here is an EP that was released a free e-release while "Kailash" was being worked on called "Yatra". The first track on this release, "Droning Earth", previously appeared on the Droning Earth Vol. 7 compilation and is a 20 minute epic of droning psychedelia, fuzzed out guitars and trance enducing riffs. And as if all that wasn't enough, then the second, previously unreleased track called "Chariot of Solemn Procession" really gets down to business with absolutely mindblowing, dark, tribal, Ufomammut-esque vibes combined with meditative chants and a mammoth backbone. Brilliant band. ======================================== Mescaline
Sunrise Queen Elephantine is a predominantly doom/psychedelic band formed in Hong Kong, which is where I first heard of them and watched them perform, and are now operating out of New York. Their music is incredibly layered and almost trance inducing throughout, consisting of stoner/sludge riffs, parts with classical Indian music (one would've thought that the inclusion of the sitar in psychedelic music was an obvious choice but we don't see that very often, do we?), amazing atmosphere, somewhat creepy spoken word passages and more. You'd think a mix of all this would come across as messy but it isn't in the least. Yatra has 2 songs, both of generous length and very enjoyable. Just play and enjoy. ======================================== The
Sleeping Shaman Imagine the eldritch and arcane sound of a cultish band of blind, hooded, albino acolytes, engrossed within their eerie sonic witch-mantra, performing before a vast cyclopean temple of ice-cold basalt, jutting forth into an alien sky of pure indigo, triple moons illuminating the sickly fungus encroaching every shining edifice, built by some insane crustacean race at non-Euclidean angles a millennia before the great lizards ruled the earth. That band is Queen Elephantine. Mystic, doomed, beautiful. Two e-releases here, put out by the band themselves on their website and available as free downloads, and may I say, both are definitely worth listening to if you like drugs and stoner-trance-drone. In fact, you don't even need the drugs, they're an optional addition if you feel up to it. I just had a cup of tea and a flapjack. Q.E. are a rather exotic and cosmopolitan collective originally formed in Hong Kong as teenage droners just a few years ago and are now based in New York. They recorded both these releases as a four piece but they've had a bit of a loose line-up history with members floating in and out like sorcerers on flying carpets. The current band revolves around the writing duo of "Indy" Shome and Rajkishen Narayanan (both handle guitars, vocals and various other instruments). 'Yatra' was released this spring and comprises two long and meditatively structured tracks. 'Droning Earth' starts with a few seconds of feedback and breaks into a lazy and buzzing guitar riff. Far away sounding vocals then enter the mix (and proceed to distort and modulate at various points), followed by undulating bass and cymbal heavy percussion and proceeds to build for the next twenty minutes. Occasionally the main riff drops out, and sometimes the drumming, to allow space for general guitar improvisation and feedback. 'Chariot in Solemn Procession' is an even more beautiful piece of music. Thirteen minutes of droning after-life trance, the bass pulsing, the vocals, harsher than the last track, wailing in places and almost chanting in others. On both tracks I hear what sounds like the wobbling drone of a sitar, buzzing and humming in the background. The production is rough and lo-fi which really suits the music. 'To Tartarus' was recorded for a 7" that never was, and was released for download this summer. The five minute title track is a slowburning and brooding instrumental (as are all the tracks here), featuring menacing distortion, a touch of slide guitar, and subtle, understated percussion on the toms. 'Nagin' is under a minute long and features shrill pipes and percussion, and feels like some kind of long forgotten tribal music from somewhere deep within the lost rain-forested valleys of Asia. 'Mirage' is solemn strummed chords, bass, and the merest hint of percussion. It sets a sombre tone that reminded me of my own mortality, and my place in the universe as an infinitesimally tiny spec of sweet fuck-all. Q.E. have created some genuinely moving and deeply 'spiritual' music here, and the feeling of narcotic other-worldliness is definitely enhanced by the murky production. Sure, one can detect the various influences; traditional Asian folk music based around pentatonic scales, Indian ragas, the ambient drone doom of Earth and Sunn0))), stoner rock and even classic late sixties/early seventies psychedelia like late period Thirteenth Floor Elevators, plus a hot lazy desert Josh Homme/Kyuss kind of vibe. This band have a very special feel to them, a heady brew of eastern notes dancing and snaking around a central droning riff that anchors each song to a central point of psychic audio-focus. On paper I've heard it before, but listening to it in my living room is a simply riveting experience. Mightily impressive. Download from http://queenelephantine.clfrecords.com/music.htm. ======================================== Sputnik
Music Queen Elephantine’s latest EP, Yatra, takes the plodding desert camel ride aesthetic of their debut full-length, 2007’s ode to Hindu sun goddess Surya, and pushes it further into the dry barren fringe of narcotic lo-fi stoner drone. It is also their most accomplished work so far, with a line-up overhaul after a base change from Hong Kong to New York City, and featuring some of the best improvisatory modal psychedelia yet to come from the group. There are many obvious changes in sound here. The first thing is the lack of the auxiliary percussionist who colored Surya’s plodding beats with additional washes of cymbals and exotic bongo patterns. In place of the dual percussionists of releases past stands only one man behind the kit, New Yorker Chris Dialogue. His rhythms are deceptively layered and nuanced, but more importantly, his switches from gargantuan cymbal-smashing ferocity to placidly propulsive groove add a whole new level of dynamic intensity to the band’s music. The music still carries the exotic punch of the past, however. The Eastern sensibilities of the band manifest themselves in the meditative drone climaxes that characterize both tunes, and “Chariot in Solemn Procession” brings back the familiar tanpura drone from previous releases. It’s used brilliantly, creating a hypnotic swirl over which the band paints its most imposing doom epic yet. The climax sees a pulsing, bassy groove explode into overdriven chaos and Sleep-esque anthemic chants while the stolid, unflinching tanpura drills its presence into your head. Opener “Droning Earth” is a two-part epic, beginning with licks of feedback that transmute into a thunderous fuzz riff, laying the seeds for a groove which the band will explore infinitely over the next ten minutes, leaving no sun-drenched stone unturned, no meticulous, consciousness-altering repetition unfulfilled. The vocals in the first section maneuver the riff with an addicting, stoned swagger as if Queens of the Stone Age's most seductive tendencies were married with swathes of mutating feedback. The second section abandons the up-front presence of vocals for a towering instrumental jam that pulses with tribal urgency and marries cosmic Pink Floyd-esque aspirations with endless deserts and a focus on channeling the mysteries of the bold red sun. The guitar riffs are meandering in an exploratory sense, using simple motifs to establish the world and then going off and exploring from there. The bass work is also far more adept than in the past; and, while lacking the outright monolithic fuzz presence of Surya, the syrupy groove with which the bassist slinks through these songs locks in with the drums for a rhythm section that grabs you by the throat and propels you to the frontline of these monolithic marches. Queen Elephantine purveys a new era of doom/drone metal in the tradition of star-gazing doom acts like Ufomammut. But more importantly the group traverses other realms of musical exploration in a way similar to the Six Organs of Admittance ilk, with their merging of Eastern and Western flavors to a bed of psychedelic aspiration. ======================================== Cloud
Magoon The first time i ever heard QUEEN ELEPHANTINE was when i was living in MALAGA for a while, i dropped by a cool recordstore that had a new split cd whit SONS OF OTIS/QUEEN ELEPHANTINE. I have been listening allot to SONS OF OTIS before and likewise bands through the years but i immedietly got hooked to what QUEEN ELPHANTINE delivered, their music impressed me by their own unique kind of way of mixing the heavyness of drone with the laidback feeling of a stoney psychedelic rock-jazz-jam. I felt like, yes! Finally there is a band that knows how to jam the shit out of it like no other, that kind of music that let..s you, me, the listerner to wander of to oblivion and beyond and just indulge the massive experince that these musician..s certainly let you do! Get..s you in to trance while you are headbanging your head into deep sleep with a big smile on your face. If you ever heard QUEEN ELPHANTINE before you know what it..s all about, plenty of room to breath and a athmosfhere that is perfectely combined with lots of toxic smoke etc. When they released SURYA i cant explain the overwhelmingly feelings i got, nothing else then- NICE, FUCKING NICE !!! Been listening to SURYA on repeat too long, but sudenly QUEEN ELEPHANTINE released YATRA, a great album free to download at their homepage, they definetely showed themself worthy of being the masters of heavy psychrock, QUEEN ELEPHANTINE is not just a band, there the new leader of a new generation of heavy psychrock, i am really excited about their fortcomming new album Kailash and what it will show to the non belivers! Collective
Zine Dual doominess across two sides of wax here, things beginning inauspiciously with Brummie types Alunah's serviceable if vaguely uninspiring plod through detuned chords and winding female vox, all of which doesn't much offend the ear but seems to lack any clear purpose or direction. Queen Elephantine have a shittier name but are eminently preferable, their turgid, swirling lope somehow hypnotic as it traipses from one tarry note to another like a primitive, sleep-deprived Om or a less accomplished Electric Wizard and making for a worthwhile end to an otherwise unmemorable encounter. ======================================== Bad
Acid ======================================== The
Obelisk In
and out in a little over 12 minutes, this
split 7” between British rockers Alunah (whose ending
‘h’ seems a recent addition) and multi-continental
experimental droners Queen Elephantine is a quick trip, but a
satisfying one nonetheless. Limited to 250 copies and issued through
Catacomb Records, each side of the vinyl features one song just past
six minutes long and though the two bands work in different
atmospheres, there’s a far-off echo that permeates both
pieces
and builds cohesiveness between the styles. ======================================== Hellride
Music Turn it over and you get something different, the track Queen Elephantine dish up is a drone/doom/psychedelic crossover called "Mephistopheles". Maybe its just the 7" format but this tune is a far more concise effort compared to album tracks they have done previously. It boasts middle eastern overtones while keep the fuzzy progressive meets psychedelia rock sound right there in your face. A complete contrast to Alunah as this tune doesn't have the usual traditional flow but after all that is one of the bands trademarks. One thing that stands out is "Mephistopheles" has a stronger melody that one is usually used to hearing from the band, its almost catchy. Putting these two bands together on a split 7" may seem a bit strange but both songs compliment each other really well. Limited copies available from Catacomb Records 9/10 ======================================== Doommantia Turn it over and you get something different, the track Queen Elephantine dish up is a drone/doom/psychedelic crossover called "Mephistopheles". Maybe its just the 7" format but this tune is a far more concise effort compared to album tracks they have done previously. It boasts middle eastern overtones while keep the fuzzy progressive meets psychedelia rock sound right there in your face. A complete contrast to Alunah as this tune doesn't have the usual traditional flow but after all that is one of the bands trademarks. One thing that stands out is "Mephistopheles" has a stronger melody that one is usually used to hearing from the band, its almost catchy. Putting these two bands together on a split 7" may seem a bit strange but both songs compliment each other really well. Limited copies available from Catacomb Records 9/10
Ritual
Room I'm sure everybody knows of the crushing and spacey Sons of Otis - well here's their split with Queen Elephantine, a younger, lesser known group of a similar musical branch. The first two tracks on this split are by Sons of Otis and plod and drone through a thick wall of sludge and sonic psychedelia, and the Queen Elephantine track is a tribally heavy, epic finish to this other worldly experience. All in all this split is apocalyptic, chillingly psychedelic and crushingly medatative... a perfect soundtrack to make this depressing and chilling month called February even more depressing and chilling. ======================================== Roadburn This split is an interesting mixture of the dense, blues-heavy Sons of Otis and more experimental, tribal-sounding Queen Elephantine. Both bands succeed in creating a similarly trippy vibe, just in radically different ways. The two Otis tracks are a fairly good introduction to the band's main styles. Opener "Tales of Otis" represents their dark, ambient and disturbing side with a droning bass riff and minimal drumming augmented by echoing guitar shrieks and wails drifting in and out of earshot. The second Otis track "Oxazejam" is a scorching example of the finest electric blues playing this side of Robin Trower saturated with Baluke's heavy and warm tones and soulful playing. "Oxazejam" is a seamless mesh of halcyon Otis solos flowing together into a heady 9 minute whole. Queen Elephantine's single 25-minute monster rounds out the EP with mantra-like drumming and bass slowly propelling the tribal vibes of the track along. The drumming is what really keeps this soundscape moving through its different sequences of minimal bass and ambient space through to chanted vocal sequences and odd guitar interludes. Very satisfying and an excellent counterpart to Otis' heaviness. ======================================== Nat Records ?gu?L?|{?A??q?a`?Oe^?oe?h?A??q???q-???e?t?@??g?????e?e?LCanadian heavy spacy doom?o??g?hSONS OF OTIS?I?L3,4?hN?U?e`?I`?????[?X! ????g?o?[?I?L2?l?E?L?E`?A?L?A?N?U?N??E???e??oeI?N?i?L?c???I`?\h?e^?e?L?g(C)?OEcosmic doom blues????g?O?i??g?o?[2?qE`?u^?^! ???`?I`?a?L?e`?o??g?hQUEEN ELEPHANTINE?I?L25?oe??E?L?a`?qy?O^mantra drone doom?i??g?o?[1?qE`?A??qOM?`HOLY MOUNTAIN?OE?[?x??q?I`?t?@??g?E?L?I?X?X???A??q??E! ?eS3?qE`?gu?N?e`(?C??g?X?g)/43?oe? ======================================== Doom-metal.com A really massive heavyweight of a split. It starts with 'Tales Of Otis' by Sons Of Otis, which is a track full of incredibly slow and slightly unnerving riffage. While most of their previous works have been very stoner influenced, this would come closer to being a mixture of doom/sludge and doom/drone. The attitude is very dark and slightly agressive. In fact, this is pretty much the same kind of music that Corrupted make. The main difference would be that this track has no vocals. The second track is more in their usual style, though still without vocals. The riffage is much less deep and jams along in a very spaced manner. High as a kite, in other words. In addition, it must be said that the melody line is incredibly relaxing while at the same time tickling the air guitar lobe in the stoner fan's mind. Clearly one of the most far out tracks in the doom/stoner genre. Exactly what any Sons Of Otis fan would be looking for. The far out music on 'Oxazejam' is a perfect passage over to Queen Elephantine's track. While they have only half as many tracks as the direct descendants of Otis, 'The Battle OF Massacoit (The Weapon Of The King Of Gods)' lasts a whole 26 minutes and that's nearly ten minutes more than the other two tracks combined. The music is nearly as high as on 'Oxazejam', but less stonery and more droning. An interesting aspect of the music is that the regular drumwork is supplemented with what sounds like a set of bongo drums. The track even ends with the bongo drums jamming it out in a solo. It really gives the track a slightly Middle Eastern feeling. The vocals are very slow and does sound a bit drunk or drugged. All in all a very relaxing track that make you feel like you're floating around above a desert on the back of a slightly psychadelic camel. The music from both bands fit really good together, giving the overall feeling of the split a comfortably holistic tinge. This wouldn't have been a big thing if the bands had more active and more intensely chaotic music. However, when the music is this relaxed and as chaotic in the same way an etheral wave would be, then good continuation is very welcome. Most importantly for my verdict, it enables the music to become really pleasant music for relaxation. And that's exactly what I would recommend it as. If you want something far out to allow your mind to wander, then this is probably a very good choice. ======================================== Stonerrock.com I've cooled on Sons of Otis since I first heard and was captivated by Songs for Worship years ago. I can't remember when the last time I listened to their last album, X, let alone if I still own it. So hearing that the band had taken a break from losing another drummer to record some new songs with upstarts Queen Elephantine wasn't exactly something that set my world afire. While their two tracks on this split won't send the band back to the top of my priority list, it does remind me of what I liked about them in the first place, in particular “Oxazejam.” Neither that or “Tales of Otis” is all-out heavy, but they're dense songs, and they both have that bluesy, soup-like psychedelia that the band's known for. Put it this way - if you could make psilocybe gravy, it would taste like Sons of Otis. As for Queen Elephantine, they have only one song, but at 25 minutes, it's enough. Of all the material I've heard, “The Battle Of Massacoit (The Weapon Of The King Of Gods)” is the definitely the strongest. It's very low key in mood, a sort of a simmering drone that at the end encroaches Om territory (vocally, that is). I'm not sure if this is the case, but it sounds like it was recorded live. All in all, it's a good slice of psychedelic drone. Fans of that take notice. ======================================== Hong
Kong Magazine One of a rare handful of cross-Pacific split albums, this joint venture between Toronto's Sons Of Otis and Hong Kong teen prodigies Queen Elephantine will prove a morose delight for fans on either side of the stoner/doom rock divide. It's an instrumental album comprised of only three songs, each of more than substantial length (Queen Elephantine's single track, "The Battle of Massacoit," lasts a good 26 minutes). Granted, some vocals do find their way into Elephantine's contribution, but they somehow sound more instrumental than many of the instruments themselves. While Otis are clearly intended to provide the album's selling point, having amassed a 12-year reputation as prime purveyors of doom-laden psychedelia, one could argue that it's Elephantine who tip the scales here. The band couldn't be more aptly named. After experiencing the sheer heaviness that emanates from their epic soundscape track, you'll be shocked to learn that it was recorded live – at HKIS of all places (and guys, while we're all for keeping it real, perhaps that last piece of info didn't need to be mentioned on the inlay.) This is doom rock and its brooding, soul-striping best. Not to be listened to if you're having a good day. Sounds like: Grim reapers hanging out in an autumn forest. ======================================== AntiMusic.com If the expression, "speed kills," proves true sonically as well as automotively, then welcome to your musical crash helmet. The particular brand of slow, goopy, metal known as Doom has long strained every guitar string and bass drum in it's collective arsenal to achieve new feats of heaviness, usually at the expense of any sense of getting on with it. Since the mid-90's when "Stoner Rock" began to partner up with Doom, Sons of Otis have been lurking somewhere in a dark basement of the underground, with cohorts like Electric Wizard and Sleep, making that soupy recipe of wonderful, snail paced, practically unconscious Metal. Their latest offering makes its way slowly to your speakers in the form of a split CD with Queen Elephantine, another similarly minded band with Orange amps and no watches. The release has no particular title, although the catchy little phrase: "War is Good Business, Invest your Sons," does adorn the inside of the cover. One can only speculate if this has any meaning within the music or if the bands have just included that for us to ponder in any free time we, the intrepid listeners, can scrape together while not plowing through an ocean of quicksand riffs and the dense fog of distortion quickly filling the room. Still, not a bad buy at three songs…three songs clocking in around forty-five minutes. Sons of Otis start things off with two songs. Those familiar with the band's previous work will almost certainly wonder at seeing the running times for the two songs, if this is a Ramones tribute album by the Sons, with each song clocking in less than ten minutes. While not a tribute to anyone in any way, the song "Oxyjezam" does provide a bit of a sonic departure, with the band more or less soloing cleanly for nine-plus minutes, rather than sticking with their more typical approach that finds them hammering out a monster riff, veiled in distorted, wailing guitar every three or four seconds. The clean guitar is strange, and the fact that they skipped out on lyrics completely is an added bonus, as their lyrics are usually undecipherable and ultimately unnecessary. "Tales of Otis", however, clings more doggedly to the aforementioned formula, although for a relatively short burst of about eight minutes. Queen Elephantine provides a somewhat different approach. Rather than the pounding drums and heavy riffs, the band employs a smoother style, with more nuanced percussion providing the backdrop for ethereal guitars. The epically named, "The Battle of Masscoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)" floats along for over twenty-five minutes, never really hitting any kind of boiling point, but never really washing out either. A decided lack of vocals, as with the Sons of Otis songs, is a huge plus. It will be worth watching out for this band if they release a full length in the near future. Starting with the high minded musicality of YOB and buffing out the rough patches by eliminating unnecessary vocal interruptions, Queen Elephantine create a solid sound that's all their own. Generally, the split CD in general is cross promotion and marketing at its worst: Two bands covering each other's songs to draw the audience of one towards the other, or some such. Usually, it's a good novelty, but little else. Doom and its related genres are proving the exception to the rule, however, with great offerings already from the Hidden Hand with Wooly Mammoth, and going back a ways, ATP with Halfway to Gone and Unida with Dozer. Add Sons of Otis and Queen Elephantine to that pantheon. ======================================== Hellride Music The Sons of Otis/Queen Elephantine split is a trance-inducing slab of psychedelia, steeped in illicit substances and left to dry under an alien sun. It matches veteran Canadian heavy space voyagers Sons of Otis with Hong Kong newcomers Queen Elephantine in a most satisfying trip to the center of the mind. Sons of Otis! Where have they been hiding lately? Despite their Spinal Tap-like problems with keeping drummers, they've been a towering presence in heavy space music for a decade or so, from the sludgy 'Paid to Suffer' through the classic titanic space voyage of 'Spacejumbofudge' to the more focused 'X' from 2004. So although Otis is best known for their space trips, they've experimented with other genres here and there throughout their history. The initial track on this split, a slug-slow minimalist mix of thunderous bass chords, bass drum, and feedback reminiscent of Khanate or Earth may throw many fans for a loop, it's not like they've never experimented before, as a thorough investigation of their past will demonstrate. The second tune, 'Oxazejam,' will be more familiar, a somewhat lo-fi space rock jam that will have you seeing colors in no time, with Ken Baluke's guitar sounding like Robin Trower or Hendrix played under the heavy gravitational weight of Jupiter. It's good to have Sons of Otis back! Queen Elephantine is the new dude on the block, a group of Hong Kong teenagers (!) who love the classic psych journeys of yore, and aren't afraid to rekindle the past, adapted to the 21st century. For players so young, they've really done their homework! Their single song on this split, the epic 'The Battle of Massacoit (The Weapon of the King of Gods)' is a droning psychedelic trip that, despite its 25-minute length, is over too soon. The music has a meditative space sound, like a solarized wind calmly blowing on an alien planet, or a brace of Tibetan monks on PCP, glued to their prayer mats and ommm-ing themselves to oblivion. It is reminiscent of the more organic, calmer moments of early Hawkwind or the cosmic Krautrock explorations of Walter Wegmuller or Sergius Golowin on the elusive 'Lord Krishna von Goloka' album. Oms blend with guitar strumming and sitar until the vocals come in around 19 minutes, sounding not unlike Sleep on the must-have 'Dopesmoker.' There's plenty of galactic bliss on this disc, and plenty of underlying dread as well. These Concrete Lo-Fi Records tend to disappear pretty quickly, so now's the time to merge with our uneasy universe. The Atman will thank you. ======================================== South China Morning Post What were you doing at 17? Chances are you weren't playing in several bands, managing a record label and distributing releases from some of your most revered musical figures. Indy Shome is, and over several years the teenager has made a name for himself as one of the most dedicated figures in Hong Kong's underground music movement. After first emerging as frontman and guitarist for stoner-rock monsters Molten Lava Death Massage, Shome has gone on to form doom-metal outfit Queen Elephantine and found Concrete Lo-Fi Records, which has helped with the local distribution for big names such as US garage rockers Brian Jonestown Massacre and Canadian sludge kings Sons Of Otis. Whereas Molten Lava were an amalgamation of intense guitar jams and guttural vocals, Queen Elephantine have stripped back the sound, revealing strong influences from the likes of pre-grunge godfathers the Melvins and drone pacesetters Earth. Queen Elephantine's latest release, a single 25-minute track on a split three-track CD with the Sons Of Otis, sums up the band's modus operandi: the constant strumming of a low bass chord intermingles with sparse guitar notes, creating a subtle interplay that drones as much as it rocks. "There's actually quite a lot going on underneath," Shome says of the track Battle Of Massacott. "The guitars are kept really low, so just the higher and lower frequencies penetrate. There's an intense amount of an emotion that can be expressed in such a small variation in the music. "We were trying to make something with a spiritual undertone. We all got lost in a trance when we made the track. It was four guys standing in a circle in the dark for 25 minutes, and by the end we were all chanting into our mikes, really drained." Glacial-slow doom metal brings the headbangers' soundtrack back to its logical progression after the extremes of lightning-fast grindcore. These aren't the sorts of tunes that are going to appeal to people seeking pyrotechnic guitar antics. ======================================== Into The Sun |
Doom-sludge.com This time a bomb comes from Hong Kong - it's amazing split with space rock geniuses from Canada - Sons Of Otis, and young psychedelic rock masters from Hong Kong - Queen Elephantine. The split has 3 tracks: 17-minutes total two songs from Sons Of Otis and 25-minutes epic song from Queen Elephantine. First track is "Tales Of Otis" from canadians. It was a little unexpected for me what i heard. Extremely monotonous and heavy drone-march in the vein of Stephen O' Malley's works. Really "mind-crushing" 8 minutes of oppressing and monosyllabic drone guitar riffs. But this painful heavyness fortunately has a counterbalance as a disturbed mad squeak/clang sounds. Moreover, these sounds adds a little variety to this gloomy funeral procession. Really dark and heavy song! But when "Tales Of Otis" eventually comes to an end - there comes a time of true space rock! I'm talking about a second track "Oxazejam". We all know HOW Sons Of Otis can play, but in this song they've surpassed themselves. Drums set an elegant placid slow rhythm, which doesn't change up to the end of song. But the main thing is certainly a Baluke's guitar. I always ask myself - how the hell he does that??? It's so awesome, that you simply dissolve in sound, a cosmic tranquillity seizes you. A sound envelops you, envelops all room, envelops everything around at all. A tremendous song! Third track is Queen Elephantine's "The Battle Of Massacoit/The Weapon Of The King Of Gods". Queen Elephantine is a young band from Hong Kong, which will blow your head off. They present a substantial 25-minutes epic canvas full of diverse pieces. Mysterious beginning with percussion and powerfull bass-waves is a prologue of this long psychedelic journey. Drums is a most intensive part of music here. Sometimes a beautiful melody appears and brings some notes of melancholy. In the first part of song there's practically no vocals. They start, when a song gradually comes to an end. A rhythm becomes slower and facilitated. A song is closed by a percussion solo. In spite of the fact that song is damn long, you really enjoy it and listen with a big interest. Hong Kong masters made a good job! This split is so good that i'm absolutely sure it will be on the top of the best 2007 albums. It's an excellent release and absolutely must have for all psychedelic-headz!!!
Stonerrock.com Concrete Lo-Fi Records's Indy Shome is a busy teenager. He's not only running the Hong Kong based indie label, but also playing in (at least) two bands – the stoner-doom-hardcore-sludge Molten Lava Death Massage, who released Eye of Ra last year, and Queen Elephantine, a more psychedelic minded band making its debut with this split with Massachusetts' Elder. Queen Elephantine's “Ramesses” suite ranges from promising to satisfying. Like Molten Lava Death Massage, there's a “recorded live in one take” quality to the four songs. When it works, it's a fairly engrossing take on the stoner Hawkwind/Pink Floyd motif. When it doesn't, it comes off awkward and under-developed. That's mostly due to the drumming, a similar complaint with Molten Lava Death Massage, but also with the vocals, which generally sound out of place. “Ramesses I” is probably the best overall, but I'd like to hear “Ramesses III” re-recorded with better production. There's enough going on with it musically to warrant the band indulging in everything a studio has to offer. Massachusetts' Elder sounds like they've been practicing longer and therefore come off as the stronger of the two acts. Their four tracks range from the slow and punishing to the more groove-friendly (albeit in a 100% doom way) to an almost hardcore stomp. “Black Midnight” is currently the favorite, as that's the one that rumbles the loudest, but “[untitled]” takes the rehashed Kyuss sound and makes it meth addict mean. The only real stumble is with “Red Sunrise,” which I've heard under different titles by different bands. I'd put this in the “There's Hope for the Future” pile. Both bands look like they're recently acquainted with the legal right to vote, and in spite of the flaws, there's plenty of promise to this split. ======================================== Hellride Music I love split albums. In most cases you’ll get two pretty sweet established acts fighting it out for top honors and more often than not serving up some pretty ass-kicking, non-album tracks. Then you’ll have cases of two sort of under the radar bands pairing up and delivering killer music that is about as hard to come by as most of the releases in their career. I would put the Lost-it/Igon split that I just reviewed into that category. Then finally, there are the split albums that serve as the introduction to two awesome bands that you are probably going to hear a lot more about in the future. I would put this split album between Hong Kong’s Queen Elephantine and Massachusetts’s Elder into the third category for certain. I haven’t heard anything about either band but stumbled across info on this split on the good ol’ net. Queen Elephantine are up first with their four parts of “Ramesses”, which are all separate tracks but really deliver their best impact when listened to as a cohesive unit. The first part of this four piece epic is an instrumental track with clean guitars and mesmerizing rhythms that set things up for the second part’s heavier, more distorted swells of sound. It is still a psyched out affair though and doesn’t really dwell into the realm of all out heaviness. The vocals kind of have an early Josh Homme flavor to them and it fits nicely with the spacey, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd elements in their sound. The vocals are mellow and smooth but with enough strength in the delivery to make them not just part of the background. Every once in awhile they feel slightly forced but for the most part it’s a solid delivery that usually comes across well enough with the music. The bass plays a prominent role in building up the track and the guitar plays distorted, buzzing riffage that eventually builds into a strong, and 70’s psyche groove. I really think fans of Titan and the recent Mammatus record would dig on these guys a lot in addition to fans of the older stuff just because they have so many psyched out, 70’s prog influenced tendencies. The third part is another psychedelic affair that builds up slowly and hypnotizing with plenty of awesome guitar lines and tribal drum rhythms. The vocals make a brief, melodic appearance in the beginning and the entire track just sets things off into a dreamy atmosphere. An out of place gravelly, vocal enters right before the mid-point (I’d drop that stuff in the future) and things start really building in intensity as the rhythm section locks in a massive groove and the guitar provides ambient background, before the distortion kicks in and things get heavy until the end. The final part of “Ramesses” builds up with bass, drum and ambient guitar before turning into the heaviest part of the jam with distorted riffing, screaming/shouted vocals backing up the melodic voice. Phew, these four tracks are a real workout and it’s interesting to note that this stuff is all improvised. The sound quality sounds like a good live recording but gets the message across without a hitch and adds to the charm of these songs. Very nice tracks by Queen Elephantine for sure even though a few quirks could be ironed out for future releases. The other side of the split turns up the heaviness big time with Elder’s, hateful doom/sludge that combines classic influence with sprawling heaviness and touches of psychedelic atmospheres, metal and vicious vocals. “1162” is a sludge fan’s wet dream with furious, Sabbath tinged riffs, huge bass, screaming vocals, elephantine tempos (hehe, I had to) and some awesome lead work that sounds straight out of the Maryland doom scene. Goddamn, really sweet track. The track is also a meaty 10 minutes long and never loses your attention or the swinging doom that it begins with for even a second. “Red Sunrise” mixes thing up a bit and maintains an upbeat, early Soulpreacher and even a Sofa King Killer kind of vibe. It is definitely sludged-out and crushing but has swinging grooves and southern friend riffs n’ leads to make this madness a toe-tapping good time! They slow down and knuckle drag almost until the end after a certain point before switching back to another blues/doom groove, giving the track a great Jekyll and Hyde type of feel. Hell there is even alternating singing and pissed off screaming at the end of the track for the ultimate finale. The singing is good too, so it doesn’t offset the sludge factor at all. “Black Midnight” is up next and it a sprawling effort roping together many varying influences. The track starts off with a grooving, epic southern riff that almost reminds me of something Rwake might have unleashed in the past before the band bring in huge, Sabbathian riffage with shouted from a mile away vocals akin to something like “Blood of Zion” on High on Fire’s mighty “Art of Self-Defense” album. There is southern doom and Sleep and early HOF all over this track and the combined result is fantastic to behold. I even feel that there is some Vitus style heaviness going on in the later part of the track when the band bring in slow, crawling doom that will lay waste to empires before descending into a massive groove once again. Seriously, I don’t know how these guys do it. They look like really young dudes and as far as I know they haven’t been around too long at all but they are jamming out MASSIVE sludge/doom epics like they are seasoned pros. Their final track is an untitled jam that starts off with an almost black metal feel and kind of reminds me of some of the Fistula related projects with a blazing riff and a cold as ice feel, topped off with sneering vocals but the track eventually brings in elements of psyched out, sludge-ridden guitar work, that caps things off on an excellent and varied note. Damn, this is a surprising split. If you are looking for pristine recording quality then you probably will be turned off by this, but fuck it. I like the way it sounds and it’s not that muddy or anything. Queen Elephantine sounds live on the floor and Elder are heavy as hell and have a grimy but clear production so that you never lose track of what is going on. I wouldn’t call it muddy, just grimy bringing forth the filth perfectly and layering the psychedelic elements with a layer of mystery. This is a damn fine split all around, and serves as a great introduction to two bands that are well-worth checking into. I’m going to be spinning this one a bunch in the coming months so definitely give it a check if you are in the mood to check out some brand new psyche and doom music. The length of this review is ridiculous but this is a pretty epic piece of work, especially by two bands I have never even heard a mention of until a mere few weeks ago. Killer stuff, don’t be stingy and miss out on this one. You’ll be sorry. ======================================== Doom-metal.com The cover art with very colorful shapes melting into eachother, mushrooms and the god Kernunos in a symbolic presentation of the divine and nature, suggests to me that whatever is to be found on this CD is highly psychadelic. The music did nothing to dissapoint when it comes to following up this prediction. The most psychadelic of
the two bands is Queen Elephantine. In
particular the vocalist sounds like a Woodstock '68 preacher who has
just tested all of his substances. The music is almost meditative in
it's repeating and voidlike strukture. To achieve this they have in
many tracks sacrificed the groove often associated with the rock part
of psychadelic rock, yet the music remains very much in that direction.
The effect is perhaps best described like this: Who cares if substance
abuse is illegal or immoral, you can get pretty high on this alone.
However I can't help but wonder how on earth all of this relates to While Queen Elephantine is a constant upper, Elder trip on far lower notes. They get their own high from grooving heavy stoner/doom metal. They bring out a lot of the good stuff from the genre and their definately strongest point is the very technical riffage and percussion. However, unlike most of their genremates, this is not a laid back band in any way. They focus on dark and agressive tracks with growled vocals. This is stoner/doom that doesn't just frown, it's sneering with vicious, shiny white teeth. In fact they are the only stoner band that I've encountered thus far that can compete against sludge or death bands when it comes to being menacing. Both bands are very good in what they do and while being very different, when combined like this they provide a complete experience from top to bottom. In addition the experience is quite unique as the bands are highly original, which can make it hard to find the right fanbase to reccomend it to. I think fans of extreme psychadelia would be the one to fancy Queen Elephantine and those who fancy stoner/sludge mixtures can expect to find something to their liking from Elder. But perhaps th easiest way is to listen for yourself. The split is free for download here, at their record company. Reviewed by: Arnstein H. Pettersen
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