The consistency with which Astral Industries has turned the cover artwork into a trademark and visual equivalent of their own label curation is remarkable to say the least, and it hasn’t actually happened like this in the world of electronic music since the heyday of Chain Reaction or Warp Records. Now in its eighth year, London’s RC Lab is synonymous with exuberantly psychedelic evening atmospheres that flit between ambient, techno, drone, folk and field recordings in the lantern light, creating entirely different states of mind. So when founder Ario Farahani meets up with none other than Rod Modell aka Deepchord aka Waveform Transmission (etc.) to whip up 75 minutes of the finest shaman music, it’s not just Berger & Rätsch who put the joint to one side to take a deep breath. Mystic AM accordingly produce everything On »Cardamom & Laudanum« that a well attended sweat lodge couldn’t do without: sweat, trance and rapture. Physicality and whatever you want to understand under dream states find their auditory equivalent here, far removed from some cheap New Age kitsch. World music in the best sense, tracks like »Entering The Sublime« or »Thus Spoke Zarathustra/The Djinn« span the arc from the Orient to the Occident and back, resonating meditative and ominous at the same time. For sure, if you have that on in the background, it floods the room with beautiful incense-like vibes. But if you take your time and immerse yourself in it, the most profound heady fantasies from postmodern nirvana beckon. So: fill the bath, light one up and immerse yourself.
Cardamom & Laudanum
