Despite an extensive discography, this was my first exposure to the instrumental music of California’s Mushroom. Their first live album is an official release, comprising songs taken from tapes dating back to 1997-1998. Of the 6 tracks on display, only “Philip Seymour Hoffman” clocks in under 7 minutes, with “ Klonopin”, “Kyle loves a funny bunny”, “The Reeperbahn” and “Why do most German booking agents have brain damage” stretching past the 10 minute mark.

Musically, the Can/Magma/”Live Evil”-era Miles Davis driven band creates passages that are very surreal, very strange, interspersing the traditional instrumentation with layers of sax, flute and a lota crazed Sun Ra’s spacetone wizardry , specialising in lengthy, sprawling percussionscapes that lurch all over the musical horizon. The fact that it's live and probably mostly improvised on the fly just increases my admiration for the musicians involved.

How you deal with the lack of real song material is up to you, but it's never less than interesting.

Cosmicmasseur.