Datura

New Zealand's Datura were a stoner band fronted by bassist and vocalist Craig Williamson that released the highly derivative Allisone (Cranium, 1998), sounding a lot like Nebula, and the more original Visions for the Celestial (1999), whose best piece however was the 15-minute Mantra, a dilated psychedelic suite.

Lamp Of The Universe (the solo project of Datura's bassist Craig Williamson) was devoted to chanted sitar-tinged shoegaze-ragas that could achieve a degree of complexity worthy of the avantgarde, like a lo-fi version of Peter Michael Hamel or a looser version of Donovan during his Indian phase. The project was born with The Cosmic Union (Cranium, 2001), a collection of lengthy, hypnotic, bluesy songs: the seven-minute languid prayer Born in the Rays of the Third Eye, the bucolic seven-minute elegy Give Yourself to Love for guitar, synth and flute, the distorted and aggressive In The Mystic Light (blues-rock for sitar), the agonizing eight-minute bluesy guitar jam Freedom In Your Mind (evoking a very "stoned" Jimi Hendrix) with counterpoint of an "acid" organ, the Indian psalm Tantra Asana for sitar and tabla, and above all the nine-minute cosmic elegy Lotus of a Thousand Petals, jangling sitar and guitar, anthemic pace, stately "om" chanting. The bubblegum-pop ditty What Love Can Bring feels out of context. However, the whole album reveals a skilled composer of melodies and a skilled "choreographer" of psychedelic trance.

The compositions are more cohesive, if a little less spontaneous, on Echo In Light (Cranium, 2002), containing the lively "hare-krishna" raga-rock for guitar and chanting Freedom To Godliness, the ten-minute jazz-psychedelic slumber-jam for guitar, organ and drums Our Celestial Flow (somewhere between Peter Green and Pink Floyd), the dreamy eight-minute sitar and guitar hymn Pyramids of Sam, and the 17-minute oneiric, Jimi Hendrix-ian, instrumental Dream Sequence, the "acid" zenith of the album (although a bit indulgent).

Lamp of the Universe's ambitious but flawed Heru (Barl Fire, 2005) is a seven-movement chamber symphony for sitar, tabla, synthesizer and guitar (the same instrumentation he had used on previous albums but here better integrated). The first movement (12:20) is a languid and repetitive chant over lengthy sitar drones. The second one (11:54) matches funereal tabla beats with swirling synth lines, evoking visions of monks ascending to heaven, but, alas, another monotonous experience. The third (and best) movement has more dynamic sitar playing and a denser atmosphere of sitar and synth at an almost bluesy rhythm with vocals bouncing back and forth the acoustic space like shamanic invocations. The fourth movement is an instrumental intermezzo of ambient-cosmic music. The tedious fifth movement (9:19) sketches a jazzy new-age melody over rock drumming. The sixth movement is another repetitive chant-synth duet with stately drumming. The seventh movement sounds like a vintage blues-rock jam.

Earth Spirit & Sky (Cranium, 2005) was a redundant work, with the twelve-minute Existence.

The four lengthy jams of the equally indulgent From The Mystic Rays Of Astrological Light (Astral Projection, 2006), tried different avenues but his best moments remained tied to his original idea. Very little happens in Sun Ritual (17:13) until the aquatic effects and subliminal chanting of the coda. Gateway To The Path Of Nirvana (17:22) is a somnolent electronic jam with drumming. The electronic sounds are more cinematic in album's highlight Vortex Of Light (10:44), so that its dilated "om" invocation ends up sounding like the cry of a damned in hell (probably the opposite of the intent). Anandamaya (8:35), another piece with drums, feels equally dark and menacing.

Continuing and perfecting the concept of the first half of the previous album, Arc Of Ascent (Astral Projection, 2007), the most static and purest of his recordings, contained two lengthy droning improvisations: the 36-minute Sumerian Acid God begins with an ominous cosmic drone intersected by slow, stoned sitar tones, spaced in time like meditation bells in a temple, to which a chaos of metallic percussion and subtle electronics adds a sense of impending apocalypse; and the 22-minute Levitation Orchestra is a gentle gliding of floating and fluttering keyboard and sitar drones.

Lamp of the Universe experimented with freak-folk and a rocking pace on Acid Mantra (Astral Projection, 2009), which contains the intricate and distorted guitar jam Astral Planes Of Knowing and the eleven-minute bluesy mellotron wordless melodrama Universe Within.

Craig Williamson then devoted himself to a new project, Arc of Ascent, documented on Circle Of The Sun (Krauted Mind, 2010), The Higher Key (Clostridium, 2012) and Realms Of The Metaphysical (Astral Projection, 2017).

After a four-year hiatus, the project Lamp Of The Universe resumed with Transcendence (2013), notably Transcendence and Beyond the Material World, The Inner Light of Revelation (2015), Hidden Knowledge (2016), containing only four suites, and notably Netherworld, the more fragmented Align in the Fourth Dimension (2019), Dead Shrine (2020), The Akashic Field (2022), Kaleidoscope Mind (2023), less and less relevant. Enters Your Somas (2024) was credited to "Lamp of the Universe meets Dr Space" and contains only two massive suites.