Crystalized Movements - The Second A Siren
Connecticut's Wayne Rogers is self-made psychedelic genius who has been working on parallel tracks to fullfil his transcendental musical mission. The records made under the moniker Crystalized Movements are simply pretexts for shimmering guitar shows. Rogers is a little Hendrix of the American small-town milieu. He can tap into the guitar's wildest effects to paint his simple songs all sorts of colors.
Mind Disaster (Twisted Village, 1983) is basically a set of improvised lysergic jams with drummer Ed Boyden.
The intensity of the unreleased Damaged Lights (Twisted Village, 1991) is such that one would agree with the song I Am The Only Guitarist In The World And I'm Bleeding. While Rogers doesn't know the meaning of the world "focus", his sincerity and dexterity accomplish something that goes beyond Bevin Frond's holeographic reenactments.
Rogers put a real band together to record Dog Tree Satellite Seers (Twisted Village, 1987), and the result is a mixed bag: on one hand the partners force Rogers to think, not just hallucinate, but on the other one the Crystalized Movements tend to sound too ofteThe lengthy title-track is reminiscent of maudit rockers such as Steve Wynn and Jeffrey Lee Pierce, but its extended jamming sounds like a cross between Sonic Youth and Velvet Underground. Unlike his masters, Rogers continuously derails his stories to masturbate his guitar.By perfecting that idea, the dissonant power-ballads on Revelations From Pandemonium (Twisted Village, 1993) approach Sonic Youth form. The new tour de force, Good Evening Silence, showcases a mystical quality (and lets guitarist Kate Biggar take a leading role).Eric Arn, who had played guitar next to Rogers, later formed Primordial Undermind.n as yet another New York revival combo.
This Wideness Comes (No 6, 1990) came to dispel any doubts. Third Half (nine minuts) is virtually a parade of extreme sounds of the guitar over a martial beat, not unlike Hendrix' live jams with the Experience. The noisy and tense ballads The Second A Siren and Rearranged paint Rogers as an alienated folksinger, a Syd Barrett of the garage-punk generation
Rogers then started a prolific solo career to expand on Crystalized Movements' wildest sonic excursions. Ego River (Twisted Village, 1992), The Seven Arms of The Sun (Twisted Village, 1993), Absent Sounds (Twisted Village, 1993), All Good Works (Twisted Village, 1995) and Constant Displacement (Twisted Village, 1997), which basically offers the same space jams of the Crystalized Movements, except that the production is more amateurish: collections of oblique and dissonant ballads in the vein of Syd Barrett, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and other neurotic troubadours. More than anything else, they display his mastery of the guitar, a diligent pupil of Helios Creed.
Rogers found his true voice with Magic Hour. The band is half Crystalized Movements and half Galaxie 500. Rogers and Biggar are joined by the deluxe rhythm section of Naomi Yang and Damon Krukowski. The single Heads Down (Twisted Village, 1994) hinted at a personal revision of slo-core cliches, but the following single After Tomorrow (Che, 1994), a ten-minute suite reminiscent of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, upped the ante.
No Excess Is Absurd (Twisted Village, 1994) picks up from there, and achives nirvana with the eight-minute noise raga Isn't A Way. (The longest piece is actually a version of British folksinger Cyril Tawney's Sally Free And Easy). Always Leaving Never is a tender melody, halfway between early Pink Floyd and early Velvet Underground, but still drenched in guitar noise. That is the pattern repeated in the other tracks, with mixed results, till the closing Heads Down #2.
Magic Hour's guitarists Wayne Rogers and Kate "Village" Biggars started a psychedelic hard-rock project called Major Stars (Tom Leonard on bass, Dave Lynch on drums), that released The Rock Revival (Twisted Village, 1997), containing just four extended jams reminiscent of Blue Cheer and Jimi Hendrix, and Space/Time (Twisted Village, 1999), containing the 14-minute Apples To Grapes. Distant Effects (Squealer, 2002) offers a mature mixture of stoner-rock (Higher Meaning, Are We) and acid-rock freakouts (Hardly Mention). Like the previous albums, 4 (Twisted Village, 2005) contains a couple of melodic ditties and two instrumental space jams, Phantom #1 and Song For Turner. Better production and tighter playing account for an overall grander listening experience. While not original by any stretch of the imagination, Rogers' excursions into mind expansion are getting more effective and less redundant, almost surgical. Syntoptikon (2006), featuring a third guitarist next to the two founding guitarists, was less impressive.
Wayne Rogers' solo album Blues-Ul Alb TW (2006) was an American version of Bevis Frond.
