
Ariel Kalma - Le Temps des Moissons [Beta-lactam Ring - 2008]Le Temps des Moissons(The Time of the Harvests)is a prog, drone and jazz cross breed original released in 1975 with hand drawn covers due to the pressing and production cost. Here Beta-lactam Ring bring it back to wonderfully hypotonic & tripped out life in a rather nice hard back book mini gatefold, with two extra tracks from the same time not found on the original release. The project that most comes to mind is Gong but at the jazzy vocal -less end of their work, with this is also being a lot more stretched-out, drone and looped based proposition. The tracks start on a groove or sonic mantra and then settle in on it, the key and always present instrument through-out the whole album is the Saxophone which weaves, harmonic honks and solos out the key melodies lines,the tracks atmospheric and sonic turns. Theres a nice selection of sounds and backing to the sax on the first track and title track the sax is just playing against a hippy spaced out organ drone texture that shifts slighty through-out the piece. Track two Bakafica comes up with stuck African percussion funky meets blues guitar groove, track three Voyage Reternelle starts off with spacey synth whistles before dropping into African tinged space rock trace. Track four Fast Road to Nowhere users a tripping and buoyant mix of Jews harp, chants and spacey snthy underlay. And lastly Reternelle builds up a spacey pulse of synth clouds that have an almost eastern tinge to them. The Sax playing through out is rich, harmonic and swirling never becoming too coarse, free or angular though it does emitting some nice high pitchers here and there. A collection of hypnotic and trace educing tracks that are rich with harmonic and spacey folds- really if you dig any 70’s kraut, prog or space rock that’s repetitive yet building with a distinct jazz air you’ll want to smoke this up in stoned joy.      Roger Batty
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