Wednesday 8 December 2010

Circle - Prospekt

Another great Circle album: I'm uploading this because they have a new album out called Rautatie which you should buy from Ektro Records, as it's excellent. It's like a summation of all the threads of their sound: it has the weird ethereal avant-metal atmospherics they perfected on Katapult; it has spaced out jams in weird time signatures; plenty of deranged vocals; and in 'Vaellus', a magnificent anthem that seems to perfectly embody the New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal tag that Circle have bestowed upon themselves: it's epic, glorious, slightly weird - with tightly rocking instrumental passages in 7/8 which build the tension before that tune powers back in with fists raised.
Prospekt, from 2000, is definitely from the spaced jam end of the Circle spectrum. First track 'Dedofiktion' has some fabulous freaky vocals as it charges towards meltdown, but the rest of the album mainly consists of Krautified loop-jams with confusing time signatures that suck in your mesmerised brain. Often they will build up a groove with chugging bass and fuzzy synths until you think you have nailed the rhythm in your head; then they bring in some guitar stabs that sound like they are being played to another rhythm. On 'Stimulance', they just pound along in monster fuzz 5/4 until the mind threatens to melt. 'Varhain' confirm's Egg's assertion that seven is indeed a jolly good time. The album ends with a pair of 10+ minute jams, and some chanted vocals, that just confirm Circle's mastery of confounding space rock jams.
Also, this album is out of print and rather expensive.

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1 comment:

Ben Coleman said...

Thank you for this: great band. I buy their stuff whenever I can but it's really REALLY hard to find!