Guardian Alien ‘See The World Given To A One Love Entity’ CD/LP 2012

Guardian Alien ‘See The World Given To A One Love Entity’ CD/LP 2012Transphasing in from the depths of the bright realm, Guardian Alien may be corporeally based in New York but it’s clear from the forty-minute mindfuck that is See The World Given To A One Love Entity that their minds, hearts and spirits are far, far off-world, partying on down with self-transforming machine elves.

Lead by ex-Liturgy drummer Greg Fox – but we won’t hold that against him – Guardian Alien are a multi-headed hydra of cosmic vibrational energy and free hypno-tonal rhythm that is somewhat akin to the effect one would get from hopping OM up on heroic doses of Crystal Meth followed by DMT. The meth would explain the ferocious kicking that Fox gives his kit for the first couple of minutes – an insane whirlwind of hyper-blastbeats and kit scouring that would do Mickey ‘The Human Tornado’ Harris proud – and once that wears off, it’s away into areas charted only by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko on the wings of Dimethyltryptamine.

Joining Fox on his pan-dimensional odyssey are Alex Drewchin, on vocals and synth, Eli Winograd, keeping up a steady throb on bass, fellow Liturgy-member – again, let’s not hold it against him – Bernard Gann on prismatic, kaleidoscopic guitar and, finally, Turner Williams Jr on shahai baaja. For the unenlightened, the shahai baaja is a kind of Indian zither. So there you go. I’m pretty sure I hear some saxophone in there too, although, to be honest, at times the sound is a churning tumult of sound that could be generated from just about anything. They could have amplified a pineapple and I’d be none the wiser.

Not that I’m saying that See The World Given To A One Love Entity is a wall of noise, no sir, merely that it reaches ecstatic peaks in which the boundaries between sounds blur somewhat, with only really the thundering drums being a recognisable sound – everything else merges into one huge wave, spilling out of the speakers and filling your ears.

Fox drives everything along, coming off the back of a peacefully pastoral introduction of tweeting birds and gentle ambience into a full-tilt Black Metal holocaust of blastbeats, dropping down into a pulsing, loose, jazzy rhythm for the greater part of things before picking the pace up and motoring along on a strong double-bass-drum pound for the home straight, a real powerhouse performance.

Of course, the others are no slouches either, Drewchin wailing away as though delivering the call to prayer as Gann whips up a storm of black psych and Williams Jr solos away as though his fingers have achieved a consciousness all of their own. Heady, heavy stuff.

Whipping up a lysergic vortex with one hell of an opening kick, Guardian Alien are making music for the kids of the kids of the original Deadheads, all hopped up on tartrazine and other less savoury chemicals, playing blastbeats in a drum-circle.

Oh, and if you see the devil, tell him ‘Boom Shanka‘.

Label: Thrill Jockey Records
Website: http://guardianalien.tumblr.com

Scribed by: Paul Robertson