ninehertz

Chicago’s Spiral Galaxy have the type of name you expect to find on labels like the evergreen Cardinal Fuzz. I missed out on their debut, so II acts as my introduction and is suitably psychedelic as you’d expect. But there’s such richness within – highlighting how this label, this genre can be so wonderfully varied.

Even though it’s a slow and minimal beginning, there is a thrill from what does arrive, namely a flute operating in ambient psych airs, as much a pastoral amble on a humid summer’s eve than the astral voyage the band name makes you assume. It’s beautiful and touching, that minimalism proving totally relaxing. The guitars on the following Wir Fur Sea paint pictures of cosmic travel, while the flute grounds it, retro-arcing it back and providing a bridge between times of old, between village folk music and futuristic expanses of the galaxial beyond.

I’d challenge anyone not to be completely at ease and to have a smile on their face while listening. Invigorating it may not be, but it provides such a bright and optimistic light. There’s a raga psych feel in the next couple of tracks, as samples talk of Jupiter to keep on theme. Here it is psych of differing levels of consciousness, all a gentle caress of your temples, the flute twittering like birdsong.

II is a soothing, wonderfully realised record, providing a perfect soundtrack for late afternoon garden comedowns after work in the current heatwave climate.