Autumn 2016
Music can cause as well as calm storms: a very real magic that good music seems to share without respect for genre or the time in which a given album is born into. It has been, after all, a difficult period for many of us. After moving to Knoxville this Summer, I’ve had a lot of unexpected readjustments to make. A coping skill I’ve carried throughout my life: music. It has helped me weather storms before, and its energy seems capable of aiding in the creative process no matter what you are doing. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of music by a band that seems pleasantly out-of-time and hard to put in a specific creative box: Ummagma. The band has been described by friends who share my musical affinities as ethereal, abrasive, lush and lovely - all descriptions that fit, each in their own ways. The truth is, I can’t recall how I first heard about Ummagma, or how they wound up in my regular rotation list. I’ve been known to call the band “umma gumma” at least once in any conversation in which they become a part of. This is mostly because I was weaned on Pink Floyd’s effects drenched sounds from an early age. I am still likely to break into Syd Barrett’s nonsensical lyrics for ‘Bicycle’ or tell a stranger if he doesn’t eat his meat he can’t have any pudding (this happens mostly in grocery stores), so Ummagma will have to pardon my excessive descriptions concerning their name, and the associations it has for me personally. Names have a way of transcending mere syllables to remind us of complex relationships to events and situations in our everyday lives. Sometimes certain music becomes a kind of soundtrack for these events. I find myself listening to Ummagma not because they really remind me of a post-psychedelic era Floyd (or anyone else), but because of how much space is filled up by their sound and how the spaces in between still seem as important, despite their seeming emptiness (which may be the point). How music speaks to you (and what it says) is the important thing to take away. Ummagma leave me with a feeling much like that of a half-recalled dream. I used to wake up with the sounds from some ghostly symphony still echoing hollowly in my head…and their music is a lot like that for me. It is strange, tactile, abrasive and beautiful all and at once. The listening is an experience, and that may be, in the end, the strongest endorsement I can give a band in an age of easily produced pop music. This music does not sound easy. Perhaps an alternative name might be Not Easy Listening. Again, a bit of a misnomer since listening to Ummagma is actually very easy, gentle even when it is rough and textured enough not seem overly soothing. And, like the pop music it is not, very rewarding in an immediate way.
Addendum: I’ve been listening to the beautiful EP ‘Frequency’ just lately, and I should mention the song Lama, remixed by Robin Guthrie. This track is really the piece I keep coming back to, even though some of the other songs are more entrancing. On Lama, the rhythm skitters away unobtrusively, like breezes in the brush. I’m not entirely sure what was going on in the brush, because my head felt stuffed full of soft sounds, conjured up both electronically, and by the beauty of Shauna McLarnon’s ethereal voice. It is filled with longing, a kind of empty space where a half-recalled memory might lie. The song pulls on that long filament attached to the heart that connects us with love, loss, even hope; it is powerful and pleasant, a low-voltage buzz that hurts sweetly. The closest thing to a real nod to Pink Floyd seems to be Galacticon. At under 3 minutes long, this soundscape seems immense despite its brevity. It is built with synthetic strings that remind me of the best sounds from 1980’s synthesizers, drenched in reverb. In place of lyrics, sound effects bubble out of the string sounds: some may be my own imagination, and all to better illustrate the illusion of space and time. The jingle of harness, the expectant hush and roar of a large audience, the low moan of wind, and the radio chatter of a space landing. All of which seem to suggest the illusion of time, and the sweetness of life, as short as the song in comparison with the immensity of a single galaxy. An even shorter song, Ocean Girl, is relaxing, acoustic, and filled with Alexx Kretov’s soulfully imploring: “Wake up…” calling across an ocean of sleep. This whole EP is richly textured (with Lama, it’s remixes, and several other songs), and feature the haunted, luminous vocals of both Kretov and McLarnon, both of whom inform Ummagma’s music with a vitality that plays well with the sweetly spectral quality of much of the music. That this band can create such amazing music while living in separate countries (Ukraine and Canada, respectively) should serve as positive reenforcement to others seeking to reach across borders and boundaries, both literal and figurative.
turnnoffyourmind
izzy806
yousharknotpass
stormborns
