"We steal music from a higher dimension. Dig deep into the untapped subconscious, seek the unknown within and express what we find in sound. Music inspired by both common and uncommon experiences from ordinary and extraordinary situations. A mixture of psychedelia and postpunk". That's what you can read on the Bandcamp page of the Swedish band Khadavra. A band I wasn't aware of until lately. Thanks to the Italian label Black Widow Records they get more attention nowadays because they have released for the first time a real CD of them. All of their 3 albums were only released as a digital album. This first CD release, titled Hologram, was already available on the group's Bandcamp page August 2021. Since June 2024 a physical version is out on CD (digipack) and double LP. For those who are not familiar with the band, just like I was, I have to send out a warning that this release is not easy to digest.The music is rather chaotic with sometimes little structure and melody. The label info sheet mentions this about the band:" Khadavra is an atypical Swedish psychedelic rock quartet created in 2012. Influences on early Pink Floyd, on jazz, on psychespace groups such as Monster Magnet, Hawkwind, Tool, Isis, Motorpsycho, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and the Black Sabbath veterans; by digging out certain beaches, the divine breaks of Anekdoten and Camel come back; a little hints of King Crimson and Sigur Ros". As far as the names mentioned most of them are correct. Although I have some problems with mentioning Camel. So, for the ones who like it complex there is a musical journey to discover which was set out by Sebastian Eriksson (guitar, vocals, sitar, Mellotron, synthesizer, percussion), Alexander Eriksson (drums, vocals, percussion, glockenspiel), Jon Klintö (bass, throat singing, whispers, acoustic guitar) and Marcus Holmström (keyboards, Mellotron, Moog synthesizer). They get some help from some guest musicians to add some extra parst to the music they have created together. They are Liv Fridén on flute (3,4,9,10), Ole Mathis Haglund on guitar and backing vocals (4,5), Ola Lindqvist on flute (7) and last but not least Nils Erichson on keyboards (4). Mentioning any musical highlights is not easy to do. But if you listen more often to the 10 tracks you might notice that Possession, Katla, Vemod and the title track are certainly the ones that show more melody and less chaotic parts. Which of course doesn't mean the other tracks are not worth listening. All in all, you could say if you like progressive rock leaning towards space rock, extensively infused with psychedelic, folk, retro-hard rock, world music, post-rock, and punk-wave elements this is another album for you to discover. Moreover if you like wailing and noisy electric guitars contrasted with bustling keyboard excesses Hologram is your album to look out for. As said before an album which sounds sometimes rather chaotic with little structure and melody. But it is still music which will find its way to the ones who love this kind of thing. Maybe you are one of them? *** Henri Strik (edited by Dave Smith) Where to buy? |
