Droning Rock for the Weekend

Here are two albums of rock drone from the Russian Association of Independent Genres (RAIG) to clear work from your mind this weekend. Prepare for space out.

A Foggy Realm (Ilya Lipkin) - Twilight
[mirror]
Electric Guitar Drone
© All Rights Reserved
Artist Location: Moscow, Russia

Psi Corps (Alisa Coral) - Shadow Creatures
[mirror1, mirror2]
Dark Space, Drone
© CC BY-NC-ND
Artist Location: Moscow, Russia

Space Rock Classic

Begun as a psychedelic collective in the 1980s, Quarkspace grew up to become one of America's best space rock bands from the 1990s.

Their third studio album, Drop, was released into the public domain as a CD-R in November of 2001, as the group was retiring from stage activities. It is available for minimal cost from Bandcamp and vendors and free with every order from the group's record label, Eternity's Jest. Duplication is authorized and encouraged.

Drop, rated 4.5 stars by the All Music Guide, is available in mp3 format at the official website Quarkspace.com, FLAC at Bandcamp (support), or on CD-R with every order from Eternity's Jest.

François Couture of All Music Guide writes:

Since the lyrics deal with the abuses of a consumerist society, the bandmembers felt uncomfortable with selling the album and thus decided to give it away. And listeners can thank them for that, because Drop stands as their best effort, a fantastic swan song.

The eponymous Quarkspace had good moments but lacked some studio proficiency. The Hidden Moon was impressive but a bit overstretched. Every track on Drop is dense, concise, and delightful. New songs (sung by a Chet Santia, still improving as a vocalist) alternate with fresh instrumental tunes. Guitarist Stan Lyon replaces Darren Gough, and a handful of guest musicians appear here and there, including Architectural Metaphor's Greg Kozlowski and Thom the World Poet reciting on the great 20-minute closer, "Blanket Hill."

As songcrafters, Quarkspace has become very efficient Meddle-era Pink Floyd trippers. As jammers, they rise even higher than before -- and Lyon's guitar work has definitely something to do with it. A group's best album available for free? Why should you pass? Fans and newcomers alike have all the reasons to be very, very happy.

Future of the Past Today

Internal view of the Stanford torus space station design by Donald Davis*

In 2006 on Sascha Müller's trippy Pharmacom-rec netlabel, a serious 2-CD album appeared that excited chill out, new age, space music, and electronica fans alike. The release was the work of Frank Dorittke as "F.D. Project" and was titled MARE TRANQUILLITATIS.

It is a pure, perfect tribute to Berlin School German electronica. Fans of Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Ashra, Kitaro, or Mike Oldfield will discover a hidden treasure that sounds like Kosmische Musik composed and performed in the late '70s. MARE TRANQUILLITATIS delivers fresh new sounds for fans of the genre.

Prepare for retro futurism. Set your dials back decades, put on your giant headphones, close your eyes and drift off into space with all the cosmic synthesizers, soaring virtuoso guitars, shifting analog sequencer bass lines, Mellotron-style samples, and spacey effects so indicative of the Berlin School.

In MARE TRANQUILLITATIS, Dorittke presents future music from the past created in the present. Just like a mission into deep space, this 2-CD release has the power to remove you from the present world and fill you with wonder.

* Artist Donald Davis' description of his painting: "The 1975 NASA Ames/Stanford University Summer Study worked out the broad engineering requirements for a toroidal shaped space colony design. This painting used the design, but I refused to fill the interior with the 'shopping mall gone mad' clutter of other drawings. Again the challenge of sustaining something like a closed ecosystem was a theme I wanted to emphasize. This design became known as the 'Stanford Torus'. Oil on board for NASA Ames."

album license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (aka Music Sharing) License