Drifting at first, quietly, almost imperceptibly into earshot, the new album by Cyclobe, Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window, brings with it worlds.
Preliminary glimmers of astral light part to reveal the album’s centrepiece, The Woods Are Alive with the Sound of His Coming, a 17-minute processionary march of organic and inorganic sounds that metamorphose and evolve into thrilling new lifeforms, infesting your listening environment with an ecosystem that is equal parts Tex Avery and Jan Svankmajer.
From the woods we return to a fiery, hurdy-gurdy whirl of incorporeal space before emerging into a concert of chamber music from a distant star. A fragile voice sings in an unknown language over vapourous percussion, chittering synths and upwellings of abstract piano – sounds that are almost overwhelmingly alien and ethereal, strange and beautiful. A final cosmic churn spins us out into the silent void, ready to make the journey all over again.
Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window is a baroque, startling and endlessly surprising record that brims over with imagination and humour, restraint and grandeur. Ancient and modern, teeming with life, riven by decay, it’s as fulfilling an album as I’ve heard in some time, and the shape of remarkable things to come.
Cyclobe are Ossian Brown and Stephen Thrower, joined by Michael J. York, Cliff Stapleton, John Contreras and Thighpaulsandra. The album is currently available in a 180gram vinyl pressing of 1000 copies in black and white vinyl with beautiful cover art by visionary artist Fred Tomaselli. Digital downloads will be available soon.
You can buy the album direct from Cyclobe, here
