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The Alps are San Francisco-based freak folks
Scott Hewicker, Alexis Georgopoulos and Jefre Cantu, playing
languid lo-fi ambient drone psychedelic-folk on the instrumental mini-albums
Jewelt Galaxies (Root Strata, 2005) and
Spirit Shambles (Foxglove, 2006), later collected as
Jewelt Galaxies / Spirit Shambles (Spekk, 2007).
The former opens with the
frantic shamanic percussion and distorted drones of Moon Over Egypt.
However, the two lengthy pieces of the mini-album are quite different in
tone and execution.
Over a riverbed of shakers and bells, the 18-minute
The River Lies With The The Lilies lays down two contrasting flows of
stringed instruments: a continuous repetition of gentle strumming and a
discontinuous improvisation of psychedelic sounds.
As more instruments join the jam, notably the clarinet, the jam becomes more
cacophonous and chaotic. Even lost any semblance of organization, the music
falls prey to abrasive drones and erratic percussion.
The 15-minute Tintinabulations is even more abstract.
A multitude of bells envelopes cryptic astral tones that sound like
harps, xylophones and vibrating strings. Then then sounds turn ghostly and
vanish in the same labirynth of bells.
Spirit Shambles is a more facile work, whose major piece,
the 17-minute Bird With The Crystal Plumage,
does not capitalize on the flute's exotic melody.
They opted for slicker and thicker arrangements on
III (Type, 2008), influenced by the classics of psychedelic-rock and
apparently heading towards a rhythm-less kind of atmospheric music
while for the moment retaining the scaffolding of the psychedelic jam.
The mood is ambivalent from the beginning, with
A Manha Na Praia contrasting
delicate guitar strumming,
chiming xylophone and roaring drones.
Emphasizing the ancestral-mystical element,
Cloud One fuses an oneiric piano prayer and a
hymn-like guitar glissando.
Emphasizing the psychedelic-futuristic element,
Echoes weaves together a Tibetan "om" drone and an ecstatic hippy howl
in a warped electronic soundscape.
Alps craft a music of both sophistication and simplicity.
The nine-minute Hallucinations blends
the cosmic guitar of early Pink Floyd and
the hypnotic drumming of early Soft Machine,
setting the stage for a display of floating wails a` la
Gong.
Trem Fanstasma is a mesmerizing duet for
ghostly electronic sounds and celestial piano notes, with guitar and vocals
entering at the end.
The closer, Into The Breeze, is the most conventional piece, a simple
country-rock vignette disguised as a metaphysical meditation.
The EPs A Path Through The Moon (Root Strata, 2008) and
A Path Through The Sun (Root Strata) were culled from the same sessions
as the album.
Le Voyage (Type, 2010)
featured an eclectic symphony of instruments and field recordings but
was a lot less intense, the chamber raga Black Mountain and the
lengthy zen-like meditation of Le Voyage being its emotional core.
Easy Action (Mexican Summer, 2011) is a hodgepodge of reworked
leftovers (Loves Of A Blonde) and rarities
(the ten-minute Instant Light).
Arp, the solo project of the Alps' Alexis Georgopolous, debuted with
In Light (2007), a tribute of sorts to German electronic music of
the 1970s with the 15-minute Odyssey. Arp's
The Soft Wave (Smalltown Supersound, 2010), on the other hand,
incorporated elements of the new wave.
Frkwys Vol. 3 (Rving Intl)
was a collaboration between Arp (Alexis Georgopoulos)
and Canterbury-school veteran of
Anthony Moore of
Slapp Happy.
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