For a three-piece band from Portland, Maine, Herbcraft sound surprising similar to a European band from the early 1970s playing psychedelic/Krautrock while stretching the limits of those genres.
For me, Krautrock was always a mash-up of psychedelic and progressive rock. Singer Julian Cope has compared Herbcraft to the soundscapes once created by the Krautrock German band, Amon Duul II, but I would have to also throw in another German band, Tangerine Dream equally as well. Some of early Pink Floyd’s space rock passages from 1969-70 also come to mind.
Herbcraft’s fourth album Wot Oz (Woodsist Records) is a saturated-sounding mono four-track recording — and it’s pretty intense stuff, with that kind of self-imposed recording limitation. I don’t think this way-out music would sound out of place at a rave, if those underground events still happen these days in some form.
Out of all of the album’s instrumentals, “Push Thru the Veil” is the best example of quasi-rave music on Herbcraft’s Wot Oz. However, when you listen to all six of these long pieces straight through — with some background chanting and shouting here and there — they all meld together. You’re probably going to think you’ve reached the deepest outer reaches of space.
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