Sylvester Anfang II - Latitudes Session

The Latitudes Sessions were started by Southern Records sometime around 2005 and have so far produced some wonderfully spontaneous and unique results from the likes of Shit and Shine, Mount Eerie, Sir Richard Bishop and Gang Gang Dance. You may have surmised from that brief list that these live sessions tend to focus on some of the more experimental/left-field/plain weird acts around - and you'd be right. A band called Shit and Shine would never make it onto a Radio One Live Lounge CD, would they? It's all very Peel Sessions and for that you can't help but salute them.

This latest release by Belgium's Sylvester Anfang II fits in nicely. Six tracks of psych-folk, hypnotic krautrock and freewheeling experimentalism. The 25 minutes here are apparently taken from hours of jamming; why they didn't make it a three-disc psychedelic bonanza I'll never know. Anyway, it's a brilliant introduction to the band and for its duration you're utterly under their (rather stoned sounding) spell.

In some ways the tracks here are reminiscent of cult, underground legends the Vibracathedral Orchestra; free-roaming, trance inducing drones and rhythms. Sometimes it's like listening to a slightly less folk-indebted, instrumental Espers while the last 'jam' struts along like The Brian Jonestown Massacre. They cover a lot of ground over the 25 minutes but the material flows seamlessly; dark, hazy sounds for late at night. The sessions tend to be fairly limited, about 1000 copies of this one I think, so get it purchased while you can. You have been told.