Daneism – Ayahuasca

Firmly in keeping with the rather Scandinavian theme this week, another compilation crops up from new (ish) Danish label Ayahuasca. Taking their name from the highly potent, and highly unpronounceable, DMT-rich psychedelic tea, their style is all about space and movement – it’s minimal stuff folks.

N.A.S.A.’s Flodekaramel is half electro, half videogame and a very trippy run through stripped-down sci-fi, while Thick Snowball from Cubica (you gotta love these names) is a bouncy, more conventional groove with analogue squelches and rumbles all over, and a quirky, deviant bassline.

Reefer Decree’s Paperbox is a strange beast, having a scary-as-hell rhythm section and snapshots of wonderful melodies shifting in and out of reality over the top. It has a rare, genuinely psychedelic quality in that as it builds up, it gets more and more disjointed – until at split-second perfect timing, it disappears only to come back in a more organic frame of mind, making added use of the melodies that have been knocking at the door all along – making a gorgeous shapeshifter sound that’s a moving delight.

Blue Diamond from Castell uses a sweet and understated bassline to set things up for a deep percussive workout, and Psyless Groove’s Beats In Our Time is lysergic house.

While this album does have genuine innovation and development of the minimal sound, there’s not an awful lot of character here – and a couple of the tunes are definitely lacking character. Still with those top moments from Castell and Reefer Decree, this is worth a sniff if you like your psy stripped-down, moody and probably wearing black.