Review: Lubianka - Cerimònies

Jazz is a bit like Marmite (sorry to those reading outside the UK - a peculiar cultural reference!) - one tends to love it or hate it, there is very little ambivalence. That being said, jazz has had more than a nodding acquaintance with psychedelia (Sendelica immediately spring to mind as a psych group who integrate jazz into their music, and some older groups like Dyzan or Brainstorm and, of course, the late, great Zappa). I personally love a bit of jazz; I'm one of those people who consider a record collection incomplete unless there is some Miles Davis. There is a point to this jazzy rambling, namely Lubianka. Lubianka are an avantgarde / psychedelic / jazz / experimental group based in Barcelona and their newly released album 'Cerimònies' (on Tonzonen Records) is a masterpiece of abstract, 'melting pot' music and is possibly one of the most psychedelic things I've heard for ages.

But let's not get too bogged down in the jazz thang! There is so much going on on this brain frazzling album; Lubianka have taken aspects of psych, jazz, free rock, krautrock, devotional and prog to make an album that assaults the senses (in a very good way!) - there is no one track where one can say 'oh, that's psych' or 'a krautrock number' - the band mix and match in a highly intelligent manner....and the results are staggering.

'Fins que el Sol es torni fum' opens the album and this where the jazz-sceptics may get a bit jittery - the droning intro and funky wah-wah guitar are underpinned initially by some vocals way down in the mix and it's all very groovy. The vocals evolve into excited yelps and we get a drum solo which heralds some jazz straight out of the fifties/sixties; some skronky sax, a double bass going double time and it doesn't take long for it to break down into a free jazz climax. 'Sa Clau' takes its lead from sixties psychedelia with some added hints of seventies krautrock - a short but sweet track. 'On els sants es tornen esclaus' is the longest track on the album at a shade over 15 minutes. Kicking off with some ace drone and sitar the atmosphere it conjures is one of blissed out peace, and when the vocals join over the sitar one could be transported straight back to the sixties and when The Beatles met Ravi Shankar. Over the course of the fifteen minutes the track evolves and morphs; some devotional chanting and some synth effects change it into something a bit more abstract and then the guitars kick in with some heavy, repetitive riffs changing it all again. Without the listener really being aware the track has gone from blissed out, pastoral psych into something far heavier and 'out there'. The track finishes with some sub-industrial rumblings and synths straight from a Hawkwind album....there is no pigeonhole for this track! 'Ouroboros' has a real krautrock influence, from the electronic noodlings of Tangerine Dream / Klaus Schulze to the more guitar based Can etc. As the track progresses the keyboards move away from electronica into more organ territory, which only serves to exacerbate the seventies German feel. The track gets heavier and more eccentric until we come, like the tail devouring snake of the title, full circle and back to the gentle, devotional chants of the intro. 'Batec' initially has some lovely female vocals soaring plaintively over some funked-up psychedelic guitar - comparisons to Pink Floyd's 'Great Gig In The Sky' are obvious! The track, as ever, evolves this time into a neo-classical piece, albeit very briefly before the sudden and dramatic stop. 'Stockhausen melancolic jazz' is exactly that! It takes the abstract, aleatory approach of the great 20th century composer and transposes it into a jazz setting. Underpinning the traditional jazz elements of sax, drums and bass are some electronic effects which serve to give a musique concrete feel to proceedings. Snippets of spoken word (Stockhausen himself?) heighten the experimental, avant garde feel of the track. For all its abstraction and experimenting, the track is a restful and beautiful way to end.

This really is a staggering piece of work, the changing moods and styles all underpinned by the musicianship of a group of talented auteurs. Earlier I mentioned that this is one of the most psychedelic albums I've heard for a long while - this is not because it is laden with fuzz and wah-wah and distortion, but because it truly takes one on a journey; it allows the listener to suspend reality for a while and mentally travel to far off places. Stunning!

'Cerimònies' is available on black and gold vinyl from Tonzonen Records, and the download is available on the band's Bandcamp page. Also available there is the band's earlier 'Naufragis' - well worth checking out.