COLLECTION

ANCIENT LIGHTS AND THE BLACKCORE

  1/  Naked Sun - Scorn                          (Harris,Bullen)               11.12
  2/  as if - Seefeel                            (Seefeel)                     6.10
  3/  as track - Seefeel                         (Seefeel)                     4.18
  4/  as well - Seefeel                          (Seefeel)                     1.34
  5/  Group Healing - Yanomami Shamanising       (Shamanising)                 8.20
  6/  Why Are You Here - T. Leary/Cheb I Sabbah  (Leary,Sabbah)                15.06
      (The Vajra Illusion mix)

          Track 1 recorded at Square Studios, Nottingham, December 1994
          Track 1 recorded, mixed and produced by Scorn
          Engineered by Tom Smyth

Mick Harris and Nik Bullen : all instruments.

          1995  -  Sub Rosa (Belgium),  SR78  (CD)

REVIEWS :

It begins with four uncharacteristically sketchy tracks from Scorn and Seefeel, as if to give it some ambient cred, then proceeds to a field recording of shamanic rituals, obtained by Toop in a community of Amazonian Indians. This backfires, alas, in the absence of a visual dimension, let alone a translation. What remains is ineffective. Finally, we have Dr Timothy Leary, repeatedly asking us ‘Why Are We Here?’, against an ‘oceanic’ backdrop from DJ Cheb I Sabbah – sampled choral voices, radio waves, that kind of thing. If it turns on eager clubbers to the works of Leary – a crucial cultural figure, who is smarter than his detractors are prepared to admit – then fine, but it could equally go in one ear and out of the other in the absence of a coherent narrative. A comparable piece, McKenna’s collaboration with Zuvuya, theirDream Matrix Telemetry cd, is in a different class, because the narrative there bestows momentum. Language acts in time, and soundbites can’t do justice to its strengths – however frequently repeated. Overall, this compilation doesn’t work for me.

Norman Jope (courtesy of the Stride Magazine website)