Bushido - Deliverance

There’s not much on the interweb to help with a decent review of this album from UK synth / experimental band Bushido. Deliverance is a bit of a mess, but it also has some really powerful moments. The project is the brainchild of Gary Levermore, who ran Third Mind Records (Beautiful Pea Green Boat, Front Line Assembly, In the Nursery, Heavenly Bodies etc) for a while. Deliverance has a very fantasy-like sound, definitely not a cheap minimal synth album for 1985, lots of digital goodness and what must have been a pricey drum machine. If the cover was a point and click adventure game Lament would be its main theme. Incidentally other Third Mind artists have guested on Deliverance, including Chryss (Julia Niblock) from Attrition and Glenn Wallis of Whitehouse / Konstruktivist.

Eden - Gateway To The Mysteries Re-Booted

Eden was a Dark Wave band that formed in Melbourne, Australia, in 1987. Inspired by Dead Can Dance, the ensemble, consisting of cello, violin and an assortment of medieval instruments, performs a chamber rock that incorporates classical and medieval folk music. The enigmatic ambience, mystical, exotic live performance was often accompanied by a druid and video projections.

The album Gateway To The Mysteries is in fact a cycle of songs in the Medieval style, inspired by an ancestral mythology. The word "church" marries vaguely oriental melodies, exotic and martial rhythm arrangements. There are traces of psychedelic rock in the heavenly chimes of The Slow Bells and Oriental spiritualism in The Unveiling Of Brigid mantra….

Look, I'm not going to deny that this is heavily influenced by Dead Can Dance, especially Brendan Perry's side of D.C.D, but to say that this is a carbon copy would not be entirely fair. If D.C.D. is your bag and you haven’t investigated Eden in the past, then this is a pretty good time to do so. It’s the beginning of spring and the seasons are beginning to turn. The days are getting longer and Eden’s take on this mythological ancestral time is fascinating.

The modern Gothic of Eden flirts with the fascination of death and decay as if it is hallucinogenic ecstasy.

The Moon Seven Times

Some records just utterly and completely slip through the cracks, and on small labels the chance of that is all the greater. Most of the ones that do disappear deserve it, but the exceptions become just that more precious, and that's the prime reason why the Moon Seven Times' debut is so worth the seeking out. Lynn Canfield and Henry Frayne left Area to concentrate on this new context for their talent, and the combination of her beautiful, strong voice and his way around an understated psych-via-4AD guitar dreaminess made for absolute magic on the band's debut. Everything starts off perfectly on The Moon Seven Times, with the entrancing, gentle build of "Her House" (Canfield and Frayne match just so well that one can't be without the other) and from there, all the band (notably including fine drummer Brendan Gamble) has to do is keep exploring their sound just so. Even the unlisted bonus tracks give other perspectives, ranging from Frayne's moody, dank instrumental to gentler full band messing around. A few songs like "Rise" and "My Medicine" kick up some fiercer rock smoke in a tense but not overdriven way (Gamble's abilities really shine on both tracks) but most are textured, flowing numbers like "Miranda," with propulsion that's not determined by volume. Perhaps the best moment comes towards the end, when the soft, mostly unplugged "Sweet Magnolias" then leads into the album's longest effort, "Surrender." Combining everything from a bravura Gamble drum performance (nothing overdone, just the right amount) with Canfield and Frayne's partnership, haunting backing vocals and suffused melancholy beauty everywhere, it's a song of gentle majesty. With Chris Bigg's cover reflecting his own work for the 4AD label adding just the right touch without coming across as an obvious design clone, it's the icing on the cake for an exquisite album.