Slip into the Vortex Reviews

Øresud Space Collective : Slip into the vortex (Transubstans 060).

I have been privileged to listen to the next Øresund Space Collective release, who will be available to the public sometime in april 2010. The former releases by the fantastic ØSC, have been completely improvised in the studio and have all been excellent in this reviewers book. This time the guys from ØSC have teamed up with some new people playing saxophone, drums and bass giving them a more mature and complete sound, going a little away from the jammy sound that they have presented on their previous releases. Their earlier releases have been in the space rock category with obvious inspiration from the finnish masters of spacerock Hidria Spacefolk and the spacy releases from Gong. On this their newest release they are going in new directions towards a more progressive sound, which in my humble opinion is absolutelly excellent and a really really good way to go. If you decide to get your hands on "Slip into the vortex" (which i only can recommend that you do), you will be presented for 6 tracks with some new ideas and directions in the music, but still being true to their earlier releases and sound. My favourite track on the cd is the nearly 26 minutes long "Mothership machinery" which is a number that evolves and grows on you complete with slide guitar and saxophone - amazing. As you probably all ready have guessed i think this release is very good one and it should have its place in every progressive music fans collection, or every other music collection for that matter. I am looking very much forward to the next releases and the future of this amazing band. Take a trip into space with Øresund Space Collective - you will not be disappointed !!!

Reviewed by Henrik Kaldahl, Jazz/Prognet Denmark
http://jazznet-dk.blogspot.com

Review in IO Pages

Øresund Space Collective: Slip into the Vortex
Transubstans Records (Transubstans 060)

Transubstans offers us a new CD by Danish-Swedish psychedelic space-improvisation group Øresund Space Collective. I think that the Psychotropic Zone readers or those who have visited our club don’t need more specific introduction to this band. The seventh official OSC release was recorded at Black Tornado Studios in 2008 at the same sessions that earlier this year gave birth to the collective’s amazing, first vinyl album Dead Man in Space (that is almost sold-out everywhere so hurry up if you still need it for your collection!). During those sessions the loose line-up featured also The Univerzals saxophone player and also one of the two bass players (both from Carpet Knights) was new while Bland Bladen’s Anders G. has played drums on many early OSC jam sessions. You couldn’t really guess from the totally improvisation-based music that they are in the studio with the band for the first time since the playing is so fluent and flowing for most of the time. On guitars we’ve got the seasoned member Magnus (Mantric Muse) as well as another old friend Stefan (ex-Gas Giant, Sumo Sun) and on synthesizers and keyboards the only steady OSC members Dr. Space and Mogens.

This album includes six tracks varying in length from six plus minutes to almost 25. First we have the ten-minute-long, a bit funky ”I Teleported to Acapulco” that is wacky, strange and groovy going. The band still sort of hold back the tension in this one. Then comes the album’s longest track ”Mothership Machinery” that at first combines the pleasantly jazzy going with for example slide guitar. Before the eight-minute-marker the jam gets heavier and the Ozric Tentacles styled rhythmical synthesizer patterns give it a nice form while the great space sounds lift the listener to heights. Towards the end the atmosphere gets a bit looser again and the saxophone gets more room. Sax is perfect for the band’s music, by the way! ”Fondle the Frequency” is a quite softly spacey and percussive number that also has some jazzy mood. The album’s best track in my opinion is the over 18-minute-long ”Slip into the Vortex” where after the more peaceful, psychedelic atmospheres the band finally gets to real tight, fast and hard space rocking. By now, if not earlier, the synapses start to pop and pulsars throb… This is really wild going where the guitarists truly freak out! This is the kind of stuff that you’d like tp hear more during the OSC live gigs as well. “Sonic Snake” is a nicely swinging improvisation in ¾ beat and has some great solo guitar among other things. A very pleasant piece. The CD is finished with its shortest track ”Lord of Slumber” that is a slow, pretty melancholic piece and its chord changes bring to mind Hawkwind’s “Golden Void”. This one has an amazing atmosphere and it is a great ending for this really good album that is also available as a download.

www.oresundspacecollective.com
06.08.10 by Dj Astro

http://www.unimeri.com/PsychotropicZone/reviews.en.php?subaction=showfull&id=1281083263&archive=&start_from=&ucat=3&

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Øresund Space Collective
Slip Into the Vortex (2010)
03|08|2010 [23:33:45] Florent Simon This collective of Copenhagen native professional musicians regularly checks into the studio to give birth to totally improvised musical textures, which enables them to publish post-production free albums within a remarkably short amount of time. For this seventh album, recipe hasn't changed a bit: a twenty-four minutes six track record of delicious psychedelic scent, tripping progressive musics with an after taste of Pink Floyd or Ozric Tentacles. Without any doubt, these too must hold Gong's monumental You as a bible.

A risky stylistic exercise that yet remains enticing to anyone who knows other albums of this gifted group and a model in musical art. Without any support, eight musicians (coming from different backgrounds: Gas Giant, Sumo Sun ... and among which two basses) try to tell an improvised story with as much spontaneity and mastery as possible, taking the listener by the hand for a trip to the unkown, as they don't know the destination themselves. From a musical point of view, the Danes are much generous, their stage performances usually exceed three hours (as a reminder: dozens of hours of concerts are available on their website, sorted by genre).

Despite the risk of repetition, disorganization and lack of structure, Øresund Space Collective handles it wonderfully and prove the true talent of those musicians, who manage to captivate through well groomed easthetic sounding and advantaging production. The musical content is rich and dense, sound is full of effects, and in spite of a sometimes monotonous rhythm, the atmosphere feels renewed with each track. One will go against the a priori idea bore by improvisation music and will immerse oneself into the throbbing hypnotic rhythms of those tracks, avoiding the pitfall of "an introduction theme stretched to its extreme point without ever taking off".

http://www.progressia.net/en/chroniques/2682-oresund-space-collective-slip-into-the-vortex

7 out of 10

18 months or so ago, I wasn't too kind to Øresund Space Collective's Good Planets Are Hard to Find, an album in which, I felt, their totally improvised, instrumental brand of space-rock jams failed to come off, unable to transport the listener into that trance state that this sort of music often induces.

Slip Into the Vortex is a much more successful album, with some excellent instrumental space-rock trance jam music.

On Good Planets Are Hard to Find, one of the key "imported" sounds was the sitar of Siena Root's K G West: its integration into the music could have been more successful. On Slip Into the Vortex, spacey keyboardists Mogens and Dr.Space are again joined by guests from other bands: Stefan (Gas Giant and Sumo Sun) and Magnus (Mantric Muse and Sumo Sun) on guitars, Anders G. (Bland Bladen) on drums, Jocke and Pär (Carpet Knights) on bass; and finally, but definitely not least, Anders H (Univerzals) on saxophones. Anders H's playing fits well into this space-rock jam style and the sax is a highlight of these jams, even when played at the edge of its capabilities. The other major contributor to the success of Slip Into the Vortex is the rhythmic playing. Anders G's drumming is impressive here, inspiring rhythmic delights that carry this music through its slow sections, lulling you into that trance before the pace quickens and you sink deeper: it's certainly a very aptly named album!

Even a piece like "Mothership Machinery", which comes in at some 25 minutes, succeeds through a variety of pace and intensity control, guitar adding plenty of verve when it's needed.

Of course, the problem I have is the difference between my two reviews of these two recent albums by the band: either Slip Into the Vortex really is more successful as a jam space-rock experience than Good Planets Are Hard to Find, or my subjectivity is showing through. I cannot be the judge to decide which. All I'll say in my defence is that I give each and every album for review a number of "blind" listens and decide its qualities on that basis before reading any promo notes, relistening to/reviewing past material etc. Slip Into the Vortex works because the players brought in for the jam have added verve, sonic textures and rhythm that suit this form of mantric music.

Over to you...

Track Listing:-
1) I Teleported to Acapulco (9:56)
2) Mothership Machinery (24:27)
3) Fondle the Frequency (7:10)
4) Slip Into the Vortex (18:14)
5) Sonic Snake (12:00)
6) Lord of Slumber (6:22)
Added: October 31st 2010
Reviewer: Alex Torres
Score: 4 out of 5

http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews.php?op=showcontent&id=9850

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SLIP INTO THE VORTEXOresund Space Collective Psychedelic/Space Rock3.98 | 4 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website Windhawk
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Multinational ensemble ORESUND SPACE COLLECTIVE has been an active unit since starting up some time after the millennium. With a good handful of official releases and multiple non-official ones, they've catered for the needs of space rock aficionados in a most prolific manner. "Slip Into the Vortex" is their seventh official production, and their second of 2010.
When it comes to space rock, OSC belongs to the category of bands who take an improvisational approach. Rather than crafting compositions and planning them to the minutest detail, live performances and improvisations seems to be their key approach. If they start out with a basic idea or if everything forms as their jams move along I don't know, but at this point they appear to master the art of improvisation on a level many others can envy them.

The 78 minutes of material at hand on this occasion is some of the smoothest and slickest I have come across so far from this act. The drums and bass sets the foundation nicely as always, maintaining momentum and establishing a basic motif, synths and Hammond adds spacey sounds and fluctuating textures expertly and the guitar patterns slowly evolve back and forth between soloing, psychedelic licks and drawn out, resonating notes. Not too many riff patterns this time around though, the arrangements and overall sound on this disc is of a lighter and more subtle nature. The addition of saxophone to the proceedings underlines this, and especially the first half of this album gives this new addition to the sonic palette utilized by Dr. Space and his compatriots lots of space to unfold, resulting in songs with subtle jazz tendencies.

Space rock is still the name of the game though, and while I didn't find this excursion quite as captivating as the ones from the last few years, I believe many space cadets will enjoy this album. If you want to zone out for 80 minutes, and immerse yourself in an inner cosmic journey without ever being disturbed before the journey has reached it's destination, this smooth and subtle production comes across as the perfect spaceship for this task

http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=308668