Calling all Shamen: grab a spliff and the keys to your flying saucer, we’re listening to “Druid’s Brew!”. As Dymons takes us on a journey through hypnotic tribal rhythms, Rasta-approved chords hitting the upbeat and full-bodied ambience, one begins to lose track of time and space.
The album does a fine job of telling a story, starting with a proper introductory track, moving into the vocal hit Gathering of Lights featuring the beautiful vocals of Amina Djahnine. Once this song hits, I return to that moment at a festival that so many of us chillers are familiar with: dancing barefoot on the grass slowly and passionately, savoring the divinity of the moment, and letting the music fill you with an overwhelming feeling of contentedness.
The album maintains this moment for me through the next few tracks, producing a meditative listening experience. Dymons moves us through elements of dub, tribal, and trance rhythms. The soundscapes are very colorful and polished, and the instruments are widely varied and well placed. You really get the feeling that each track tells a chapter of the whole story, leading up to the magnificent nineteen-minute conclusion, Blessings. This track is a true dub epic, which stands out in my mind as one of the finest works in our little genre I’ve heard in recent times. Vocalist Amina Djahnine returns with another haunting siren song lightly placed over an exotic, melodic, dreamy, dubby bed of sound. The main thread of the track weaves in and out, making itself present enough to make the track whole, but vanishing for long enough to allow one to get lost in the mood. I am also always happy to hear a bit of psychedelic spoken word in moments like these, in this case we hear Ralph Metzner emcee a few lines here and there. |