Fans of instrumental, dark ambient, psyche rock should step this way. Weak Sun is the debut album from Sonar//Radar, a Leicester four piece, all veterans of other bands from the city of Claudio Ranieri and Richard III, bringing guitars, drums and bass together with synths and piano. The album is currently only digital but sequenced like a vinyl record, a short burst of drone and radio waves/ voices forming the intro to side 1, a track called Intro To Side 1, which then fades away for Baksheesh For Imi, a much longer piece of music, six minutes of synth, piano and a ghostly guitar lines all layered over the rumble of bass and drums. Wolf Eel follows, bursts of feedback from a guitar amp and then a ringing guitar line, a post- rock, Tortoise feel, the guitar taking the lead. Fifty three seconds of gorgeous ambient wobble, Too Many Novels, takes us towards Bad News From Outer Space, what would be side 1's end point- more ominous sounds from the Midlands- radio waves, static/ Velcro being unripped, the tick of the cymbal, guitar notes from the ghost of Michael Karoli's guitar, the sound of something bad coming through the line.
Side 2 opens up slowly, one and a half minutes of drone and atmospherics and leads into the slightly softer, calmer notes of Barbel Hook, a track which spins around a minute in, the drums suddenly kicking the tempo up and the post- rock guitars and drums are back with echoes of Mogwai. The album's title track Weak Sun is the longest piece of music here, eight and a half minutes, the soundtrack to a sci fi/ folk horror short film, a totally absorbing trip with the synth taking the topline and the guitars, piano, bass and drums creating a dark dreamworld backdrop. The final track is a live track, The Lucky Ones Died First, the post- rock/ psyche rock live and direct from a stage somewhere in the East Midlands/ the outer reaches of space. Get Weak Sun at
Bandcamp