Artist/ Band: Secret Saucer
Title: Element 115
Label: Dead Earnest (UK)
Year of Release: 2001
Artist/ Band Link (click for details/ ordering)

The Review:

Secret Saucer is not a band, but a marvelous spacerock collective assembled for a weekend long session of improvisational jamming. Distilled from the sessions is a single 68 minute pass-the-bong instrumental CD, with the less effective material swept in the dustbin. Most of the tunes derive inspiration from the early Floyd "deep space drift" school of spacerock.

In fact a good portion of this could easily have come out of the jam sessions for any post- Syd/pre-DSOTM Floyd offering. Constructs are kept simple, motifs are repeated, tempos are slow and groovy. Guitars have lots of delay on them, keyboards bubble psychedelically like its '69 becoming '70, and nothing has to go anyway in particular...accept relentless move into the heart of the sun. It's the kind of album that buddies sat around listening to with the lights low way back when, occasionally bursting out with a "yeah!" when the guitarist explodes into a slow-burning solo.

A "chill" album if you will, but not one that comes out of today's downtempo genre. Probably not something I'll come back to very often, but definitely worth keeping in mind when it's 2am and time to slow the heartrate way down as the partygoers head home but it's not yet time for bed.

Who would like this?
Bongheads, definitely.

Who would not like it?
Speedfreaks.

Reviewed by Steven Davies-Morris on December 24th, 2006

Tracks:

1. Star Rise [1:29]
2. Sword of Conneault [6:49]
3. Solar Winds [4:19]
4. STS-107 [6:37]
5. Atom Smasher [7:20]
6. The Traveler [4:08]
7. Duul [8:38]
8. Desert of Existence [6:10]
9. Astral Progeny [4:06]
10. Looking Skyward [6:31]
11. AMBQSM [6:08]
12. Beyond Time [8:11]

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