Ras.Al.Ghul - The Experimental Absorption Spectrum -199X- (Cassette, Self-Released), Portugal

Ras.Al.Ghul was an electronic music project from Lisbon created by Fernando Cerqueira and Paulo Rodrigues. The duo started out during the mid-80's as an electro-industrial group called Croniamantal. They released some tapes by themselves as well as on the Portuguese cassette label Ritual De Sombras and contributed to a number of Industrial compilations. After a short existence they decided to bury their industrial project to start the hypnotic electronic dance project Ras.Al.Ghul (perhaps named after a supervillain from the American DC Comics).

The Experimental Absorption Spectrum is a tape release that was apparently distributed through experimental cassette labels like Tonspur Tapes and Maljugin Musik in Germany. The album displays an electronic tribal sound that touches on different genres of electronic music of the 90's - from Drum 'n Bass to Downtempo - yet the music never really conforms to any of these genres. The sound is maybe closest to a 90's psychedelic trance atmosphere, but the lo-fi quality of the recording in combination with the electronic experimentation doesn't allow it to become generic. 

It sonically connects the industrial culture's breeding ground of the 80's with the rave feel of the 90's through hypnotic beats and sub-aquatic ambient electronics fusing technology with the mind's eye: a Portuguese underground sound that balances on the sonic intersection between a neo tribal industrial music tradition à la late Muslimgauze and the sound of upcoming communal neo-psychedelic trance festivals.

Southern European space music to be absorbed by.

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Korai Öröm - Live -199X- (Cassette, Self-Released), Hungary

Korai Öröm are a psychedelic and tribal band from Hungary that started out in the early 90's in the wake of the fall of the iron curtain and the end of the socialist system. At that time the gates of Eastern Europe were flooded with new sounds that came into the newly liberated countries and the neo-psychedelic 90's hit harder than anyone would have imagined. Tribal gatherings, free festivals and dance music styles changed the musical landscape and pirate radio stations (in the case of Hungary Tilos Radio meaning Forbidden Radio) started to transmit the music of the new underground and the neo-psychedelic revolution.

Korai Öröm was a band with many members that played free-flow jams that were a mix of psychedelic rock, tribal rhythms, electronics, downtempo and experimental sounds. The tradition of Hungarian jam music and the channeling of a free form stream of music can be traced back to the Shamanic rock group Vágtázó Halottkémek that can be seen as the originator of the genre within the Hungarian underground.

During the 90's Korai Öröm became increasingly more known playing many festivals as well as concerts outside of Hungary. They created some iconic albums during their first decade capturing the 90's underground mentality in a re-opened democratic Hungary that was searching to realize its new potential. It was the moment in which music was here. Music was now. Music was liberating. This rare tape is a collection of obscure unknown live recordings by the band from the mid 90's capturing the communal aspect of the Hungarian underground at the time through some lo-fi psychedelic jams. It reminds me somewhat of the Serbian psychedelic band Igra Staklenih Perli from Belgrade.

Get it HERE