Eat Lights Become Lights - Into Forever

They have, as you may or may not know, provided backing music for two of said titans: Silver Apples’ Simeon and, more importantly, Can’s Damo Suzuki. That music, and those artists, fall into the cobwebbed genre called ‘psychedelic rock’. I’ve emphasized the words there for a very simple reason: The word ‘psychedelia’ – or more pertinently ‘psych’ – is a dead term that has come to represent every band from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Sleep. As you will probably know, these bands are quite dissimilar.

Eat Lights Become Lights make psychedelic rock in a very authentic sense – they make music influenced by musicians who had direct contact with psychedelic drugs. Simple as that. Over the course of their latest record, Into Forever, you’ll hear bits of your favourite kosmische sounds from Cluster to Tangerine Dream by way of Kraftwerk.

The title of opener “Velocet Vir Nacet” invites an Anthony Burgess mention, owing to the fact that ‘Moloko plus vellocet’ was the milk with added opiates on sale in the Korova milk bar. Wasn’t it? The track itself is constructed around a frenetic groove, and it’s an exercise in ‘less is more’ minimalist hypnotism that you’ll find is the link between Silver Apples, Psychic Ills and Moon Duo. The echoing guitar sounds like it could be on a permanent cycle, and when the stabbing bass synth sound gains its full momentum around the three-minute mark, the track enters the stratosphere.

The theme upon which “Bounce Synth” is built is a gentle, rolling pattern of bright, almost bell-like synth sounds. It shows little in the way of progression, but it doesn’t need to, such is the enthralling quality of the track. It’s rapidly followed up by “Time Enough”, which transfers the staid, sedentary euphoria of the previous number into a robotic Kraftwerk-esque cut – it could, and perhaps should, be three times as long as it is for the magnetic vibrations to take full effect.

“Shapes and Patterns” is a fantastic example of how ELBL have retrofitted modern machinery to make seemingly authentic 70s German noise. It wouldn’t seem out of place on a host of Krautrock bands’ records, such is the spiralling quality that is imbued within the track. A gated synth forms a pattern that’ll have your head nodding in no time – until the inevitable mouth-open awe at the percussion line brought in at around the two and a half minute mark. It adds a percussive skeleton to the sound that you didn’t think was needed, but that you’re glad to have – it gives the track a metronomic feel that evokes the finest motorik constructions.

ELBL showcase their astrological tendencies with the positively star-gazing epic “Vapour Trails”, which is undoubtedly one of the finer efforts on the record. It allows for an introspective, internal participation with the track that you’d find when listening to the cinematic work of Tangerine Dream. As such, the sedate, tranquil tone highlights the inventive nature of the band – it seems to be part of an already-established sound rather than merely a facsimile of it.

“You are Disko” is the choicest cut on the record, if you take your Krautrock with a dash of stimulant. The first track on the record that you could consider ‘danceable’, there’s a thudding, progressive percussive backbone holding up the kaleidoscopic experimentation going on around you. The meshing of the synth and percussion patterns is impressive in its completely fluid form. The album closes with the ambitious and palimpsestic title track, which seems to cover all of the bases hit by the previous tracks and expand on them. It starts with an ethereal, enchanting clicking and clacking percussive base and unfolds over nine too-short minutes. It’s a masterstroke when considering the fact that the album showcases a wide palette of sound – the aptly named Into Forever sends the album off into the stratosphere.

Band members Neil Rudd (guitars, synths), John Barrett (drums), Matt Donovan (drums) and Al Baker (bass) really have a genius piece of work on their hands here – it’s one of the most authentic, honest sounding releases in the ‘kosmische’ style in recent memory. The biggest shame is that the champion of such sounds, Julian Cope has closed his monthly Head Heritage review page, he would surely give this his golden seal of approval. This album was a joy to listen to, without a doubt.