Hills – Frid
Like their fellow psychedelic world-music-aficionados Goat, Sweden’s Hills have one eye on the West, another looking to the East and a third one gazing into another dimension. In fact, Frid’s first track is a little like getting a postcard from your entitled gap-yearing uni pal because halfway through its running time the mega-fuzzing electric guitar (“California was baking, bruv...”) is suddenly replaced by the sound of a single sitar (“we’re now in Delhi, mate... wish you were here!”). The Eastern patterns seep into the next number, ‘National Drone’ (which nation that might be precisely is anyone’s guess), which adds indecipherably echoed vocals and some fully-immersed lead guitar noodling. The ten-minute stand-out track ‘Och Solen Sänkte Sig Röd’ has some nice heady bass, propulsive, Krautrock-ing drums and a Bong-like mad monk doing some mental mantra chanting about how you should look inside your mind or whatever. The monk’s presence continues on the concluding track ‘Death Will Find A Way’, which lies equidistant between George Harrison’s fancy mansion, Amon Düül’s communal crash-pad and a dusty Hindu temple. With certain psych releases it’s unclear whether you’re having your consciousness expanded or being given a geography lesson. Thing is, they’re the same thing, right? Some wizards wear elbow patches.
Read the full piece here: The Quietus
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