Miscellen – Black Mandala I

 

 

Miscellen – Black Mandala I
Self released – 2022
Rock, Alternative, Psych, World, Noir, Prog
Rated: ****

As long as we can move, we shall not lie down to die. Through hardships unnumbered… Their 2021 album Blue Ruin was suddenly there, for me at least, and it was perhaps thanks to Reek of STOOM that Miscellen jumped onto my radar back then. And now, a year later, Miscellen is back, with a completely different and totally other worldly album called Black Mandala I. This time the record seems to move to the Sahara sands, the Middle East, the dangerous outskirts of some huge and towering city long forgotten and shrouded in mist, mystery and covered in sand. Opening with Odyssey I, the album immediately shows its Mesopotamian colors, adding Oud and Ukulele to the instrumentation is only part of that colorization. The entire song feels like a sirocco is whirling around you, dizzying you and making you loose all sense of space and time. It is the set-up for what is to come, but perhaps, not all of it. For even though second track Nova continues on with a dangerous storm, much of Odyssey II feels like the danger has passed and you are moving along on the back of the camel across newly formed sand dunes. It all fits, and it all tells that wondrous story of discovery and to top it all, here comes the fourth, riveting Gaian Dolls track. Burning like an emerald flame; the track warms and shines its kaleidoscopic lights across all that you might perceive. Wise Guy, starts off feeling like the musical equivalent to a secret oasis but then once again turns into a tempest. Stone Fruit I, the dream sequence, a colorful Souk, where you are wandering without knowing where to go or what you are looking for. Have we taken it too far? Has our imagination run amuck? Well, in that case, Black Mandala I has served its purpose well… And it continues on in Gone Too Long, with a dark voice narrating your return to the beginning, before the Angelic voice starts its serpentine temptation. Final track Stone Fruit II, is a righteous fare thee well to what we just heard and sounds like a postponed welcome to what surely must come. For yes, Black Mandala I, is the first part of a two-part adventure… Where and when it will take us next… We long to find out…

(Written by JK)

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