Reviews

MUGSTAR, GRAFT album review
(Cardinal Fuzz & Centripetal Force records)

Not that the initial droning wash of “Deep is the Air” or the off-blasted “Zeta Potential” and warp-drive freneticism in “Cato” don’t have their appeal — oh, they do — but when it comes to UK lords-o’-space Mugstar‘s latest holodeck-worthy full-length, GRAFT, it’s the mellow drift-jazz of the 12-minute “Ghost of a Ghost” that feels most like matter dematerialization to me. Side B’s “Low, Slow Horizon” answers back later on ahead of the motorik linear build in the finale “Star Cage,” but the 12-minute vibe-fest that is “Ghost of a Ghost” gives GRAFT a vastness to match its thrust, which becomes essential to the space-borne feel. It’s 41 minutes, still ripe for an LP, but the kind of album that has a genuine affect on mood and mindset, breaking down on a molecular level both and remolding them into something hopefully more evolved on some level through cosmic meditation. Fast or slow, up or down, in or out, it doesn’t ultimately matter. Nothing does. But there’s a moment in GRAFT where the one-skin-on-another thing becomes apparent and all the masks drop away. What’s left after that?

JJ Koczan (H.P. Taskmaster)
23 December 2020

The Obelisk – online, New Jersey.

http://theobelisk.net/obelisk/

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MUGSTAR – ‘Graft’ Album Review

Mugstar, one of Liverpools preeminent sound machines, bigger than you’d think, after 20 plus years of making noise that is defined by making music ‘that we like’ and not what should be popular. They’ve made no compromises during their long illustrious career that has taken them across Europe and to the US of A. They’ve played as backing musicians on films and at art and dance festivals as well as headlining music festivals all over the world.
After their recent great release of a live album recorded a few years back collaborating with Can genius front-man Damo Suzuki (not a first time collaboration) at Liverpools Wrong Festival, Mugstar release a new studio album – Graft.
From the off its heavy psych. ‘Deep is the Air’ sets the scene – and Mugstar paint sonic scenes. A slow introduction, haunting but ambivalent in what is about to follow. What is to follow is ‘Zeta Potential’, seven minutes of heavy drop dead psych glory. Riff laden and fascinating. It pounds away at your consciousness with drums from hell and guitars to match. Moments of out there, slow but fast build ups, chugging chord sequences interspersed with pulsing darkness fill the aural spectrum, soaring yet solid, not a beat out of place.
‘Ghost of a Ghost’ starts slowly, deliberate chimes and harmonics from the guitar slowly introduce some form of alien melody. It keeps its pace and builds a grandeur many bands would envy to emulate but within the Mugstar context sounds unstrained, as though the band are looking for musical answers to questions only they know. A long section of slow heavy drums accompanying a slow languorous lead guitar takes us to the tracks end providing space to think, space to explore. Space to listen. Before a final crescendo wipes all thought away and leaves the listener in another world.
‘Cato’ jumps out as seemingly uplifting compared to the previous darkness, almost a hint of a traditional rock band in the structures but subverted by the Mugstar sound. It motors, the drums and guitar project forward taking the listener with them until the sharp abrupt end.
‘Low Slow Horizon’ with its organ wail and low fuzzed up bass intro contrasts with the previous tracks whilst still staying Mugstar in its sound. There’s more than a hint of Sergio leone about it and the mesmerising drum pattern lets the slow build up on guitar with some additional synths fly free. A simple repetitive baseline underpins it all and gives scope to the sound.
‘Star Cage’ starts with a heavy bass and drum pattern that allows the guitar to explore musical horizons. The bass and drum lock in tight and lead the track. The guitar explodes with the changes as though a black hole had suddenly arrived in the albums midst and the track ends on a high with drums bass and guitar all hitting the same chunky riff, accelerating us to the albums end. Heavy as fuck.
Graft is a heavier album than we’ve heard from Mugstar (not that they are light) in a while. Mugstars use of space – one of their great musical gifts – is exemplary, this is a band that have been around but are still searching for musical answers and prepared to be creative to find them.
Words: RBY
THE LAST STOP SOUNDS – online magazine – facebook
9 December 2020

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MUGSTAR-127591997334111

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MUGSTAR – GRAFT – album review

8.5 / 10 Progressive Space Rock
Mugstar Graft hits the shelves on October 30th 2020 from Centripetal Force and Cardinal Fuzz Records.

Mugstar Graft is the 13th full length album and is an instrumental progressive space rock journey with ripping guitars, entrancing drums and complex unpredictable transitions. The band digs deep into space rock fuzz and gets far-out with technically complex compositions.

Mugstar are from the UK and have been releasing space rock music since 2003. They have collaborated with Damo Suzuki of legendary krautrock band CAN, and the heavy psychedelic experimental rockers Cosmic Dead. They have become underground masters of on stage improvisation in the psychedelic rock genre. Graft is a return to their original line-up with more premeditated compositions and controlled sections of improvisation. This makes for an album with a well defined arc that pairs brilliant psychedelic fuzz rock blowouts and groovy chilled out space rock. The tension created between these two dynamics is extremely well done.

Mugstar Graft has rich guitar tones, dirty bass, tight drumming and out-of-this world backdrop. The soaring guitar solos range from refined Pink Floyd influences to straight up experimental freak-out fuzz madness. The guitar tones are supreme with juicy sustain, clear echoing spaciousness, and melodic sensibilities.

Mugstar Graft is a space rock lovers paradise and is in line with the bands previous output. They have established themselves as one of the most refined space rock bands with technical skill and progressive compositional capacity. They have found the balance between in-the-moment expression and planned emotional dynamics and transitions. This creates epic songs that take the listener on a ride. The album plays like one long song with 6 movements and does not become repetitious with an ever-changing spread of music.

Mugstar is a highly experienced band and they have worked with some of the best creative musicians in the psychedelic and kraut rock scene. Graft has the band back with the core line-up making some of the best music of they have put out. This album is a underground classic waiting to happen. The wonderful psychedelic space rock guitar tones are worth the price of admission alone. The addition of incredible compositions and dynamic songwriting push this instrumental album into the premium teir of psychedelic rock.

The album is being released on Cardinal Fuzz and Centripetal Force Records in very limited edition. In fact many copies are already sold out. The Vinyl comes in Black with 350 copies and Dark Red 250 copies world-wide. I feel a collectors item here for you vinyl junkies trying to get you fix but you best be moving fast! The limited edition will be gone before the release date.

This is a great album and I know I will be enjoying it for some time to come.

THE PSYCH ROCK
thepsychrock.com

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MUGSTAR AND DAMO SUZUKI – INVISIBLE WIND FACTORY – album review
(LP on Weird Beard Records)

Back in those distant days of live music in packed, sweaty rooms I remember attending this concert with fellow Terrascope scribe, the illustrious Ian Fraser. Part of the 2018 Wrong Festival at Liverpool’s Invisible Wind Factory and other nearby venues, this set was one of the absolute highlights of a fine day of psychedelic rock.

Mugstar and Damo are no strangers to each other having shared a stage and recordings before this gig and their mutual pleasure in working with each other is clear to see and hear. It’s a pretty impressive marriage between Mugstar, one of the most interesting bands working today in the field of inventive and exploratory psych and space rock and one of the most iconic vocalists in the history of Krautrock who still crams in an eclectic and busy worldwide schedule of collaboration and free improvisation projects.

Weird Beard have generously provided us with the chance to relive the full forty or so minutes of a dynamic and memorable set, a wide ranging improvisation taking in many diverse twists and turns on its path. Underpinned by a solid yet varied rhythmic platform, Mugstar create a musical canvas where light and shade is created through guitars that shimmer and soar, compelling and memorable riffs that propel where needed and feed melodic ideas providing texture, colour and contrast. There are generous servings of driving motorik, touches of desolate spaghetti western landscapes, flashbacks to echoing and tense early eighties psychedelia tinged new wave and Stooge-like energetic and exhilarating solos and riff fuelled sprints which come and go through the set keeping it varied, unpredictable and most importantly exciting. Using this canvas, Damo Suzuki treats us to his full array of vocal talents, sometimes leading the music to new places and sometimes responding to the challenge set by Mugstar. At times harking back to the wailing improvisatory style of his Can days, sometimes growling like Tom Waits and then crooning like Scott Walker (or even Ian McCullough) at his most desolate and experimental, Damo’s chameleon like and indeed unique approach to singing is demonstrated at its very best here.

I really enjoyed the set as a punter but this well recorded vinyl time capsule is already offering up some new delights unheard in the general hubbub of the crowd on the night and is pretty much essential listening for any fans of Mugstar, Damo or indeed of high quality and inventive improvised or psychedelic rock. Strongly recommended for your audio pleasure.

Francis Comyn
Terrascope review, June 2020

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(((O))) Album Review: MUGSTAR & DAMO SUZUKI – INVISIBLE WIND FACTORY

Release date: June 15, 2020
Label: Weird Beard

You gotta hand it to Damo Suzuki. Here is a guy who could be living off the past through his rather splendid work with CAN, yet has taken it upon himself to attempt to play with pretty much every band that has ever existed as a conduit for his weird garbled lyrics. At home in a festival hall or a backstreet boozer, as long as the “sound-carriers” allow it to happen, the muse is struck. It doesn’t always work, but we have to suppose that is the key to understanding what Damo is doing.
He is utilising the sound-carriers to try to find new ways of presenting his music. Almost a trial and error basis, mostly done with little to no rehearsal. It’s a very nomadic way and links in with the ethos of a travelling musician or bard, drifting from town to town in search of a story. That story eventually reached Liverpool band Mugstar, purveyors of some of the finest space rock this side of Hawkwind and they must have struck a chord with Damo as here we have a second live album, this time recorded from the Invisible Wind Factory during the WRONG Festival in 2018. Once again, it was a case of no rehearsal, and in for a penny in for a pound as they linked sounds and breathed out a psychedelic fury.
A fury is what it is too, and for just over 40 minutes the music swirls and bludgeons your senses as Damo provides his familiar warblings over the top. It’s no use trying to make sense of it all, and the key is to sit back and enjoy the noise as it happens, hoping for a moment of elucidation, although you may need to imbibe certain drugs to get to that point.
Released via Weird Beard on a limited run of 500 with 300 being pressed on “eco vinyl”, it preserves yet another moment in time on the Damo quest. Out of the many collaborations this easily stands as one of the best, if only because Mugstar tend to understand just what it is that they are seeking in the music. Having a history of exploring sounds, their cavernous sound matches perfectly with Damo, with him becoming more of a part of the band rather than the strange focal point which can happen.
It seems an age since we have heard anything new from Mugstar so to get this little stopgap is a nice treat, and as always they turn up the dial and overload your senses. The band have an innate sense of what makes a jam work, and within their familiar sound, they have threaded together a mystical path via Damo. The night in question must have been one of those moments in time where the stars align, and even in its preservation here, you feel a sense of energy which emanates from the very core of the music. That core being Damo, with Mugstar being the carriers.

Martyn Coppack
ECHOES AND DUST – 13th July 2020

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MUGSTAR: Collapsar – album review –

MUGSTAR
COLLAPSAR (Skull Scorchers and Neuron Phasers – Singles & Rarities)
(EVIL HOODOO RECORDS)

What can one say about Mugstar? Those leviathans of psych and mighty behemoths of kraut have been gracing our turntables for nigh on fifteen years and have pretty much become elder statesmen of the UK scene. If ever a band were to be tagged with the epithet ‘legends’ then Mugstar are that band. One of the very last bands to record a Peel Session after catching the great man’s ear with their first single ‘Spotlight Over Memphis’, they have gone from strength to strength in the intervening years culminating (thus far) in last year’s magnificent ‘Magnetic Seasons’. They remain the one live band who are guaranteed to leave me slack-jawed and dumbstruck at their sheer power and seismic strength……no ‘showbiz’ gimmicks or showmanship..just a bunch a guys who get on and play music powerful enough to tear a hole in the time/space continuum. There is a reason for this panegyric eulogising (not that I need an excuse) and that reason is ‘Collapsar’, a mighty double album that traces the Mugstar journey from the early singles to where they are now…and what a journey it has been! Evil Hoodoo (a label that for whom perfection is less an ideal and more a prerequisite) bring us this exemplary collection of ‘Singles & Rarities’…early singles, unreleased tracks, live favourites and alternate takes on album tracks… and never has an album’s subtitle been more apt….Skull Scorchers and Neuron Phasers indeed!

The collection kicks off with the 2007 7″ ‘Bethany Heart Star’, an absolute monster of a track, all krautrock rhythms and scorching guitars, one of those sort of tracks that make you feel good to be alive and this joie de vivre is only heightened by the following ‘My Baby Skull Has Not Yet Flowered’ 7″, a slow burning kraut number that builds and builds until it reaches critical mass, the point where all one can say is “fuck yeah!”…a neat encapsulation of the Mugstar live experience. The pummeling, repetition based psych of ‘Red Shift’ is followed by ‘Man With Supersight’ with its tinge of surf and Pavementesque guitars. ‘Spotlight Over Memphis’ is the band’s first ever 7″ single and an obvious point of interest to anyone who has never heard it…and what a fuckin’ debut! A hi-octane psych juggernaut complete with spacey synths and 100mph guitars…it easy to see how it caught Peel’s eyes (ears!) Next up is ‘Blue Shift’, a companion piece to the earlier ‘Red Shift’ (sharing the same 7″ in 2010), a more experimental outing with discordant electronica and stabs of guitar. ‘Trone’ is all tribalistic drums that accompany guitars that display a real post-rock bluster while ‘Technical Knowledge As A Weapon’ ( a 7″ from 2009 and appeared on the ‘…Sun, Broken…’ album) is one of my favourite ever Mugstar tracks, laden with muscular krautrock goodness and daubed generously with swathes of synth..awesome! Next up is ‘Flavin HotRod’ (the second 7” from 2004)…another ‘fuck yeah!’ moment….channeling a dragstrip twang into a track of sheer visceral fury that is just sheer exhilaration. ‘I Got The Six’ takes the fury from ‘Flavin…’ and drops into a psychedelic monster, taking the heavy psych of the seventies and warping into something heavier, faster and scarier. ‘Object’ (from the almost mythical ‘Trail’ CD) sees another side to the band, taking the lo-fi ‘stop/start’ structure and transposing into a track with more impassioned vocals and coruscating guitar…it sounds like what it is, an early incarnation of a band that has yet to fully immerse itself in the murky world of psych. ‘DikSik’ sees a return to the heavy post-rock structure while ‘Tam Lin’ is a real curiosity, a cover of the Fairpoint Convention track. The vocals are ‘clean’ and there are flashes of the original’s folky roots amongst the barrage of guitar and drums…A real surprise in the package, and a very pleasant one that showcases the musical dexterity of the band. ‘Mascon’ is another cut from ‘Trail’ and is a lovely slice of post-rock with some nice changes in intensity….the band obviously had musical nous right from the get-go. Although ‘Floatation Tank’ is from the same era it has all the elements that make Mugstar as special as they are…the same building of intensity, the same solid wall of noise and the same ability to completely mesmerise the listener. This superb collection is closed with ‘Bardo Head Finder’ (from the ‘Travel Expop Series #2 : Great Britain’ compilation) and it is fantastic…classic Mugstar with guitars that crash out of the speakers and a motorik rhythm that just does not stop….as ever the intensity builds and by the end leaves you quite breathless…heavenly!

I’ve always been a bit ‘meh’ about collections and compilations of a single band but ‘Collapsar’ is no ‘Greatest Hits’ callously compiled for the christmas market…it is an exhilarating document that traces the interplanetary journey of one of the very best bands out there. It goes without saying that the music is fantastic, it was always gonna be but what is fascinating is hearing where they came from with those early singles and tracing the upward trajectory to where they are now, the early tracks show the inherent, raw talent which has blossomed over the years. For anyone who only know Mugstar from recent albums or only know them as a live entity…..actually, no, fuck it…for absolutely everyone, I would say, this is a pretty much essential album. ‘Collapsar’ should be on everybody’s Christmas list this year…head over to the Evil Hoodoo webshop to pre-order now before the December 15th release date.

Dayz of Purple and Orange magazine 2017

https://dayzofpurpleandorange.blogspot.com/2017/12/review-mugstar-collapsar-skull.html

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MUGSTAR: Magnetic Seasons – album review –

MUGSTAR
MAGNETIC SEASONS
(ROCK ACTION RECORDS)

It’s odd that while Mugstar continue to be defined in terms of krautrock’s mechanistic rigidity, in practice they are expansively serpentine, their stained-glass melodies and amorphous bubbles of synth rejecting time and space to gradually fill the subconscious. Magnetic Seasons may dip into the motorik spirit, Time Machine accelerating through frantic guitar loops and cymbal tsunamis and Unearth’s tribal uproar plunging rather than coaxing the listener into it’s depths, but from La Vallee onwards, it’s an undulating slow burn that is more content to meditate than steamroll ahead, with Ascension Island not so much as lurching to a halt as settling into a natural state of rest. A shapeless collusion of windswept nature and kosmische sound, it’s a heady finale to a thoroughly magical trip.

David Bowles
Rock a Rolla magazine 2016

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MUGSTAR: Magnetic Seasons – album review –
From http://cracklefeedback.com/a

8/10
Label: Rock Action
Release Date: 4 Mar 2016
Writer: Adam Millard

The gist

A fine new album from Liverpool’s instrumental experimentalists Mugstar

The music

Mugstar have been around since 2003 and they’ve released numerous albums and singles via various indie outlets. They’re something of a cult band (the fact that they recorded the last ever Peel session doesn’t do them harm in this respect), and a band that has eluded me until now. Rock Action records are releasing this latest double LP (a seal of approval that will surely perk many a casual listener’s ears), and what a fitting label they are for a band like this. Dark and intricate, but ultimately rewarding, Mugstar are a real pleasure for anyone who’s into sprawling instrumental, trance inducing musical odysseys.

Magnetic Seasons does a lot of genre hopping over it 4 sides of vinyl and the band have deliberately allowed themselves time to experiment and improvise during its recording. The resulting sessions are a real encyclopaedia of sonic ideas. In fact, the album opens with “Unearth”, an overture of sorts which takes in the band’s myriad of influences (Psychadelic segments, Doom/Dessert rock and even a fast poppy bit in the middle) and “Flemish Weave” continues this eclectic method of structuring songs, which works in spectacular fashion. In its lighter tones it resembles fellow North West dwellers Doves, but it goes a little ape-shit from there and includes an improvised melodica solo that’s never quite in tune with the rest of the instruments. Eventually though, the band settle down into some more single minded, less erratic compositions. The swirling one note psychadelica of “Remember The Breathing” is a particular highlight, taking what bands like Spiritualized and Primal Scream did brilliantly before they imploded into pub rock pastiche – using a single, simple idea and running with it until the song has reached its natural conclusion (15 minutes down the line). A fine album. Now it’s time to dig a little deeper into their back catalogue and see what other nuggets I can find.

Listen to

“Flemish Weave” and “Regency Blues” – these two tracks kind of sum up the two faces of Mugstar. The first finds them at peak crazy mode, and the second sees them focusing on a single idea and seeing where it takes them. Both techniques come off very well indeed. “Ascension Island” – a 17 minute monster which goes from spoken word to quiet reflection to full on impending doom. It seems that Mugstar are the David Lynch of the rock music biz, they just keep ramping up the tension without having to rely of noise or shock tactics, just an incredible lurking menace and a whole load of restraint.

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MUGSTAR: Magnetic Seasons – album review – From The Quietus

Written by JR Moores March, 2016

MUGSTAR – Magnetic Seasons (Rock Action Records)

CD/2xLP/DL – Available from 4 March 2016.

“English post-rock acts never really mastered the enigmatic sense of mystery that kept international audiences rapt for the next Godspeed You! Black Emperor release, Slint reunion tour or countless Explosions In The Sky tracks that all sounded the same. Like 65DaysOfStatic, Mugstar have been taken for granted, perhaps because their lack of pompous earnestness meant that certain beard-stroking listeners lost interest. Unlike Canterbury’s precious Yndi Halda who return this year after a decade’s absence (and we’ll see whether that enigmatic sabbatical pays off), Mugstar are a prolific and unpretentious quartet from the North of England who may not play pseudo-classical suites that urge you contemplate the transitory beauty of each passing sunset, but boy are they fun. They’re having fun too, as signified by the not-entirely-necessary chanting and whooping in the background of Magnetic Seasons’ spacey opener. Elsewhere, ‘Time Machine’ initially recalls the exuberant space-rock jamming of Denmark’s Causa Sui, although as it gets heavier and heavier the stoned riffs of West Virginia’s Karma To Burn come to mind. ‘Flemish Weave’ is all mellow and floaty with rustic finger-picking until it transforms into a more intense kosmische throb. The simple, repetitive bass line on ‘Remember The Breathing’ is augmented by a lovely Hawkwind-style sonic whirlpool for fifteen hypnotic minutes. They showcase their more melancholic side on ‘Sky West & Crooked’, which is the closest Mugstar get to channelling the gloomier moods of their label bosses Mogwai. Taken as a whole, this long and loose record is an object lesson in how to be indulgent without resorting to tiresome po-facedness.”

http://thequietus.com/…/19785-psych-rock-reviews-mugstar-ca…

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MUGSTAR: Magnetic Seasons – album review – From louderthanwar.com

Written by Glenn Airey February, 2016

MUGSTAR – Magnetic Seasons (Rock Action Records)

CD/2xLP/DL – Available from 4 March 2016.

8/10

Psych-rock explorers Mugstar unveil an epic new double album on Mogwai’s Rock Action Records. Louder Than War’s Glenn Airey hears them take it to another level.

The latest addition to Mugstar’s prodigious if somewhat tangled discography is all about scale and ambition. It’s also an effective statement of their comparative seniority in a field that’s grown rather crowded around them: when they started out in Liverpool, early in the new century, there was little to compare with today’s self-sustaining national scene of psych-rock labels and festivals. Practically a whole musical generation has grown up since, on a diet of the staples like Sabbath, Hawkwind and Neu!, to the point where even a painfully PC wonk like me can assume it’s probably alright to use the expression ‘krautrock’. I still think it’s a pretty puerile way to describe beautiful music made by fascinating people, however, so if it’s alright with you I’ll stick to the other, much more appropriate k-word, kosmische.

It’s a good time, then, for Mugstar to remind us of their time-served status with a special record, and that’s what they’ve done with Magnetic Seasons. Its nine tracks clock in at a hefty 74 minutes and, while quantity is obviously no guarantee of quality, those in the know will recognise that this music tends to be at its best when it has plenty of room to breathe. In one sense, there’s an intrinsic contradiction within music that might be described as psychedelic-kosmische. The German model, of course, was characterised to a large extent by rigidity, repetition and regulation. The psychedelic impulse, meanwhile, has always been to break out from containment, to freestyle and go wherever the colours take you. Those bands, like Mugstar, who really inhabit this music and understand it, can square the circle by panning-out: drawing back their viewfinder to display the bigger sound picture. Given the time to evolve, these tracks travel from their kosmische core to the unbound outer reaches and back again, without ever committing the cardinal sin of missing a beat.

In the lead track, Flemish Weave, the dichotomy is addressed head-on via the reverse technique of contraction, whereby weightless, vaporous sounds collapse after a couple of minutes back down into a terrific, pulsing motorik groove, complete with ghostly melodica for fans of the dub spectre. This and the epic Remember the Breathing are the key kosmische workouts that give the album its rhythmic spine.

Elsewhere, the Doors are stylishly evoked as exquisite guitar figures and keyboards ripple across the becalmed surface of the title track. Similarly chilled is La Vallee, a cavernous bass guitar describing huge underground spaces where a lone guitar howls just around the next corner.

If this all sounds a bit elemental, well yes, it’s that kind of album, and the two closing tracks absolutely exemplify its ability to replicate the power of nature. Both Sky West & Crooked and the stunning finale Ascension Island are as impressively windswept as their titles suggest. Indeed, Magnetic Seasons is a well-named collection. Within its covers are heat and light and dark and cold. Music fit to accompany you across oceans or deep into space. Don’t let the ship go without you.

~

Mugstar are on Twitter @Mugstar , Bandcamp and Facebook

All words by Glenn Airey. More of Glenn’s writing for Louder Than War can be found here – http://louderthanwar.com You can follow him on Twitter @GlennAirey

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MUGSTAR & DAMO SUZUKI – “Start from Zero” review

colourhorizon

Mugstar / Damo Suzuki – Start From Zero (2015)

Mugstar have won. All other psych bands should just go home. Why? Because Mugstar have recorded an album with Damo Suzuki…

It is titled Start From Zero and consists four tracks. Let’s have a look…
“Waken To The Night’ starts the album with the clanking, grinding machinery of noise that we have come to know and love from Mugstar, like the internal workings of Metal Gear Rex (colouhorizon is never, ever above a 1990s Playstation reference). It’s a furious Hawkwind meets the Duracell Bunny rhythm; relentless energy. Damo streams words against this backdrop and it is fascinating to hear him against a more vigorous musical backdrop than he had with CAN, yet the near drum solo past 6 minutes shows that Mugstar come from the same lineage as the krautrock overlords. The words come as thick and fast as the music, making for a white knuckle 13 minutes.
The mysterious foreboding of ‘Subway Sounds’ imagines Closer era Joy Division providing the music for a Nordic crime show. The bass; ten ton footfalls of a stone-spawned monster on the prowl. Glinting shards of ambient shine through an oozing atmosphere. At 4 minutes this is far too fleeting a treat.
‘Innanewah’ rumbles with along like a psychotic, malevolent hoover. Scratchy guitar solidifies here and there. Damo’s vocals are right on the money, no idea what he is singing but he is in commanding position and his interplay with Mugstar’s brand of straight lined space rock is exhilarating. Throughout the album he sounds as invigorated by Mugstar as the Liverpool band sound inspired.
‘Zero Coda’ (click to listen) is sharp edges and frisky beats all the way. Mugstar’s strength is bringing giddy abandon to their music and this encapsulates that perfectly, the music here is as joyous as eating jelly on a bouncy castle. This moulds Damo’s words into an effervescent, fevered day-dream. Wonderfully, his delivery reaches ‘Halleluhwah’ levels of transcendence. By the way, ‘Zero Coda’ goes on for 22 minutes, so yes, the spirit of CAN is alive and well… Travelling deeper and deeper into this epic, the music flows and punches sharper and harder with Damo becoming increasingly possessed and hypnotic. An emblem of enraptured; his shamanic delivery elevates the music further. Together they build a psych feedback loop.
Mugstar and Damo Suzuki? Does this count as Christmas and birthday present combined?
Krautrock legend meets psych royalty to herald a future age… essential.

Link: https://colourhorizon.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/mugstar-damo-suzuki-start-from-zero-2015/

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From THE SLEEPING SHAMAN webzine

Mugstar Live @ The Roadhouse, Manchester 1st June 2014

Scribed By: Adam Stone

Mugstar are the best psychedelic instrumentalists in the world right now (with the possible exception of Earthless, who plough a more free form Hendrix-inspired furrow than Mugstar’s very English/German psych-beat). Their punky chunky riffs and motorised beats draw deep on the balls-out cosmic crunch of the first five Hawkwind albums and the eternal autobahn mantra of the three Neu! albums (plus the hallowed sacred genius song-concept that was/is Pink Floyd’s ‘Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun’), but to reduce Mugstar to such a focussed and specific historical output would be inaccurate. They have evolved since the early twenty noughties into a full throttle psych-machine that takes a well-loved template and hammers it with craft and guile into a new mode of inner transport, one that is so refined and beautifully executed in its simplicity that the music NEVER needs vocals, it just NEEDS to be heard live (preferably live, and if not live then loud on a quality stereo). A testament to their charging crackling power was the fact that amongst the modest and committed crowd a number of punters had started to properly dance, flinging their arms around and really bloody going for it like it was the 1972 Buxton Rock Festival . How could you not move to this? I myself was playing a kind of air drums set up, my right thigh being the high hat or ride cymbal, my left thigh the snare and my right foot naturally keeping time by snapping my heel on to the floor in syncopation to the bass drum. Whilst doing this I stared straight at the masterful Steve Ashton, battering out the most precise beats upon his kit with such loose-wristed ease it was like he had been drumming for a thousand years.

Kicking off with a head-kicking ‘Sunburnt Impedence Machine’ from 2010’s ‘Lime’, Mugstar steamrollered through their expansive back catalogue, including a circuit-frazzling adrenalin-burning ‘Today Is The Wrong Shape’ from the recently re-released on vinyl ‘…Sun, Broken…’ album. As tight as an amoeba’s anus, Mugstar work like a holistic unit of sonic attack, each member no more than the entirety of the band’s sharply defined and uber-driven sound. Having said that, Pete Smyth goes for the frontman role as he wildly oscillates and naturally draws the eye with his frenetic onstage activity, as he swaps screaming lead guitar for keyboards and then for melodica, whilst jerking around and twitching like a severed horse’s cock. Underpinning all of this are Jason Stoll’s titanic and ever undulating bass lines, perfectly recreating the massive cement and steel foundations that Lemmy so admirably provided on the early Hawkwind recordings.

If you haven’t already acquired their six studio albums (get them all from Mugstar’s bandcamp page) then do so with urgency. I find that I never take a Mugstar album off before its finished like I sometimes do with other bands, because their full blooded grooves never fail to draw me right in to their very centre. Indeed any time of the day seems to be Mugstar time. That sounded like a tag line for an advert didn’t it? Imagine a TV advert for Mugstar? Anyway, it was here in this very venue a couple of years ago that I first saw them, supporting Harvey Milk (where I memorably wrote “Mugstar wove a many layered Persian carpet of hypno-rock that showed off their pedigree as possibly one of Britain’s finest exponents of psychedelia, for want of a better genre term. Shall we just say music that is designed to appeal to ‘the inner voyager’?”), and then again last year at the second Liverpool Psychedelic Festival (where they completely wooed every midnight fuck-head in the hall). Both nights they pulverised the audience with mighty combination punches of out-there riffs, wildly off-kilter keyboard breaks and savage, ever insistent drumming. Where other instrumental combos often lapse into quiet noodlings and meanderings, Mugstar never ever let up the pace. Theirs is a breathless and joyful journey, where the drums and the riffs interlock in dynamic union to push forwards and ever onwards, an essentially punk aesthetic that says ‘don’t fuck about, don’t bore the listener, take the fucker by the throat and speed on down the road’.

We got one encore and then it was eleven pm and we all had to leave, satiated and filled-up on a creamy cosmic casserole of raw power. Sonic tonic.

 

http://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/gig-reviews/mugstar-black-bombaim-three-dimensional-tanx-the-roadhouse-manchester-01-06-2014/

 

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From Middle Boop – MUGSTAR – LIME – Album review

From Terrascope – MUGSTAR – LIME Album review

Amongst my quirky filing system, in which albums are grouped along the lines of stylistic tendencies rather any rational chronological or alphabetical process, Mugstar albums hold pride of place alongside a string of Terrastock luminaries such as Bardo Pond, Kinski, Oneida and Grails as well as the odd Neu! and Hawkwind CD. This in itself probably tells you enough about the band to help you decide whether it’s for you or not. The British quartet rarely put a foot wrong in my eyes, and ‘Lime’, their third album (second this year I believe!) scheduled for an October release is if anything their strongest yet.

Whilst the thirteen-minute long ‘Serra’, with it’s extended Kraut-styled riffing, is obviously the stand-out cut of the album and a monster by any measure let alone Mugstar’s already high standards, ‘Radar King’ is marginally the most interesting of the four cuts on this collection: an instrumental which kicks off with a fairly typical for Mugstar Kinski-esque metronomic beat led by shimmering guitars and some gorgeous drumming (always a strong point if this band), before unexpectedly dissolving into an atmospheric space-rock cinemascape not a million miles removed from the Man band’s ‘C’mon’. The guitars then lead the listener out towards a blisteringly apocalyptic crescendo. A word of praise is in order too for the inspired addition of guest clarinettist Jonathan Hartley (of Clinic) who adds some hauntingly Hawkwind- and Beefheart-ian flourishes to the aforementioned ‘Serra’.

Opening cut ‘Sunburnt Impedance Machine’ is pure, undiluted Mugstar riff-trickery with chanted vocals which once again oddly enough brings to mind the Man band with perhaps members of Hawkwind joining them on stage at some celestial gig at the Roundhouse, whilst the closing ‘Beyond the Sun’ finds the band in a more reflective mood throughout the seven minutes of an elegiac, atmospheric synth / guitar ballet, with once again Steve Ashton’s brilliant drumming quietly insinuating itself into your subconscious.

That I adore this band probably goes without saying. That this is a contender already for one of my favourite albums of the year definitely is worth bearing in mind though.

(Phil McMullen)

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