This album paints a twisted parade of new Hindu medievalism fraught with anarchic banquets, of primordial electric ooze. Starting with the raging multi-track clarinet fanfare of "Reog Doom" accompanied by a stompin' drum track that barely hangs on to the groove, Lovers and Dragons seems a full-on reimagining of Angus MacLise's (the original percussionist of the Velvet Underground) most fevered psychedelic dreams.
Oddly enough, the synthesis seems as much to do with Eastern tribal ritual music as it has to do with industrial noise. "Danau Lindu" (Indonesian for "Earthquake Lake") mists silently on flutes, wave drums and drones, while "Barogan" blasts flailing free-drumming, Tuvan throat singing and guttural reed statements.
Breathtaking in its vision, Lovers and Dragons manages to get to the fear that sits behind a lot of the most fraught ritual music.
(End of the Alphabet Records)Oddly enough, the synthesis seems as much to do with Eastern tribal ritual music as it has to do with industrial noise. "Danau Lindu" (Indonesian for "Earthquake Lake") mists silently on flutes, wave drums and drones, while "Barogan" blasts flailing free-drumming, Tuvan throat singing and guttural reed statements.
Breathtaking in its vision, Lovers and Dragons manages to get to the fear that sits behind a lot of the most fraught ritual music.