Vinyl Review: "Ti Bon Ange" by Suspirians

Ti Bon Ange

What you may or may not know about me, dear readers, is that this guy right here is the biggest nerd you'll ever meet.

Sure, most days, pimping brutal death metal, drinking craft beers, shaving with a vintage safety razor, and having a beautiful family, and living in a beautiful home that needs work...

You might not ever guess that I'm reading a fantasy novel, a Red Dwarf novel, and thinking about the space time continuum.

The eddies of the time stream fascinate me to no end. Recently, I had a very long dream about such things. In the dream, my biggest childhood dream could have been realized should I have been willing to go back in time and make a singular different choice.

Now, we could speak about the Mirror of Erised here and discuss my life and the ramifications, but what struck me about that dream was my understanding of what would have happened should the deal have been accepted.

Suspirians

The biggest moments of our lives were did not happen in a vacuum. When I think about my life and where it's gone, it's hard to forget a singular dinner I had with my ex-wife.

We were eating at our favorite Chinese food buffet and catching up. Really, at that point it should be noted her status had been changed from ex-wife and back to friend.

That night when we ate at Happy China, she changed my life and on the other side of the country, a similar conversation happened and it changed all of our lives.

The flotsam and jetsam of the world and the universe created the world in which we are living now.

Ok, tangent over.

Let's connect that to the record at hand shall we? Recently, we took in X's 40th Anniversary Tour at Delmar Hall. Like many of us, opening acts had largely been unkind to me. That night was different. Skating Polly took the stage and after about three songs, I turned to my wife and said, these kids had better start to suck or I'm going to walk over there and buy a record.

Which I did.

Seeing those, very young, kids playing on a stage, opening for X opened  my mind up to a different kind of music. It's not right to call it progressive, because it's more stream of consciousness.

Today's review, Suspirians feel like an elder sibling to Skating Polly. Both in substance, style, and content. This is truly spectacular because there need to be more and more bands in this vein.

This vein is simply plugging in and playing.

It's easy to lump this into the same brainspace as the the avant garde metal bands that frequently catch my hear and ensnare my heart.

These are all bands that are just playing on pure feeling. Standard musical tropes do not apply here. There are no verses, no choruses, and don't even think you'll be able to find the bridge.

Has anybody seen the bridge?

No. No they have not seen the bridge. Guitar solos, meaning that we all can get behind. There's nothing remotely familiar on this record.

For those needing a better description of what we are hearing, it's Lo-Fi Space Rock. It's kind of like watching Star Wars for the first time...and not the cleaned up versions, but the original one. You know it's supposed to be futuristic...and it almost is.

That's what this is. It's musical Star Wars.

This is the latest release from Austin, TX label, Super Secret Records. This record doesn't feature gatefold covers, super thick vinyl, or any thing more than a no frills packaging, with a download code.

Must like the the music contained within, there's nothing more than it requires. Because no one's listening to the insert right?

Release: 6/9/17
Genre: Lo-Fi Space Rock
Label: Super Secret Records
Formats: LP/CD/Digital
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