Oranssi Pazuzu – Velonielu (20 Buck Spin)

Oranssi Pazuzu – Velonielu (20 Buck Spin)

Set the controls for a dying star and let yourself go. That’s the image stuck in my head as I listen to this thing. We’re drifting through space, stuck in an underpowered tin can with all manner of spooky space shit clattering around outside, ricocheting through an asteroid belt only to float off and die somewhere on the cosmic horizon. Oranssi Pazuzu is Hawkwind refracted through black metal: dark, interstellar psychedelia with a mechanistic motorik bent, and only the slightest terrestrial tether in the form of grating black metal screams. It’s hard to explain this band in normal terms since they exist so far out on the fringe — extra-dimensional krautrock death march? Angry transmissions from a radioactive moon? The music summons a jumble of hypothetical, evocative gibberish. I’m listening all the way through for the third or fourth time today, for probably the fiftieth time this year, and I realize I could play this thing forever in a loop without ever tiring of it. If any album this year is a mind-altering experience, this is it. –Aaron
[LISTEN]