Review: Tambourinen ‘Wooden Flower’
No, it’s not Tambourine the 1960s-flavoured Dutch band from the late 80s, this is Grant Beyschau, drummer and saxophonist from The Myrrors, with his own revivalist take on classic drifty psych. If you’re familiar with The Myrrors this record will hold no great surprises.
With a focus on repetition and trance, Grant spins out three mellow jams (and a last fragment) grounded in bass groove and gentle reverb. Layers that accrete from guitar lines and untethered synth, blissness business. For a solo record by a drummer, the percussion is generally surprisingly far back in this process, just ticking over to anchor the intertwining leads.
For most of the record’s run, the mood is very relaxed, this is not psych to blow open minds, so much as welcome them into its own space. That said it does push at times towards a gentle freak out, as in Power To with ecstatic sax flooding the weir, encouraged by a push of guitar. But this is a safe freaking, held softly in a bright meadow, more mellow and warm even, than what I’ve heard from The Myrrors.
With a focus on repetition and trance, Grant spins out three mellow jams… grounded in bass groove and gentle reverb…
Those who like their acid with a malign side, or find release only in extremity, may find Wooden Flower somewhat tame, but there has to be somewhere to go when you’re coming down, and it seems to me that you could do much worse than end up here, a timeless space held by someone who knows the ritual well.
I don’t know the background to these songs being worked-up, but this feels like a few experiments that have been wrapped up and released, rather than a full coherent piece. Whether there is more to come from Tambourinen I have no idea but I would be keen to hear a couple more fleshed-out jams, to give time to stretch out and work right into the light.
Avant-Unity Music put this out on cassette earlier in the year, but you can now pick it up on vinyl via Centripetal Force or Cardinal Fuzz, depending on which side of the Atlantic you find yourself.
Label: Avant-Unity Music | Cardinal Fuzz Records | Centripetal Force Records
Band Links: Bandcamp | Instagram
Scribed by: Harry Holmes
