(Heavy Psychedelic | Space Rock) Smoking Spore - Conversations In D-Minor - 2009, MP3, 320 kbps

Smoking Spore is a band from Houston, Texas, formed in 2008 by four friends who just got together to simply jam, initially without the purpose of making a band. On the second rehearsal, they decided to record the whole thing which by the way was released on their debut and only album 'Conversations In D-Minor', on Ground Sloth, their own record label. They also don't compose anything, they just step into the studio or climb up the stage and start to jam around and it is worth mentioning that their debut album recording was practically left the way it was recorded. They jam nearly in the same way of bands like Earthless or Tia Carrera, making use of many different effects and distortions. Highly recommended for psyche and krautrock freaks and we are expecting for a second album the soonest possible!
Line-up:
Brendon Thompson - bass
Billy Sullivan - drums
Beau Jackson - guitar
Brandon Bowers - guitar
"Thick psychedelia, sweet solos, and awesome guitar sounds."
- Decibel
"These four improvisational guitar jams have a strong whiff of Hendrix and Satriani..."
- Houston Press
"After putting my head into this disc, I must say I am completely blown away. To imagine these guys in the studio just 'going for it' with no overdubs or second takes is mind-boggling; it sure doesn't sound that way. The end of track two when the hard drive poops out is cool and obviously unintended. I bet it wasn't cool when it happened, but it totally coincides with the theme of the band. It also appears as the live show is a mind enhancing night out. These guys are tight like spandex. Fans of Colour Haze and Earthless take note. Highly Recommended."
- Planet Fuzz
"Undoubtedly, this album will occupy the prized space between my Earthless, Mammatus, Sun Ra, Hendrix and Ash Ra Tempel albums. If you're even remotely interested in those bands, there's no reason why you should deprive yourself of this furious piece of work. This material is a perfect example of the kraut rock in the early seventies: artistic freedom featuring many drug-inspired experimentations. Crushing liquid guitar solos by Beau Jackson and Brandon Bowers are mixed with a dynamic rhythm-section by Brendon Thompson and Billy Sullivan to move these four pieces through several dramatic and powerful moods. There’s enough acid melting sounds cascading throughout the tracks to keep your ears occupied for quite a long time (74min). I’m not sure but I guess these jams are recorded in one take due to the live flow and the no nonsense sound. Smoking Spore score very high on the psychedelic rock meter."
- Concrete Web (Belgium)
"Well, speaking of "mutations" I have here a true indie release by SMOKING SPORE called Conversations In D-Minor. There's a sticker on my copy that mentions whiffs of Joe Satriani and Hendrix (which is more like it!). The cover is a drawing of some kind of acid-mutation-being that's like a cross between the Smog Monster and some sort of Daniel Johnston nightmare gone all molten snot. "Very interesting...", I think to myself. Now the music here is a Jamming sort of sound, but no Dead or Phish scent can be detected, ...and I think, "Thank God for that". That Satriani reference must be a bit of a wide throw, unless Satch is way more f'-ed up lately in a psychedelic sense, ...because this album is just that, ...very heavy jams with some metal, stoner rock, and Hendrix in the mix. These are live to recording cuts from the band's second "jam" together in some Texas studio, ...no overdubs, and no electronic twiddly bits of any kind! What you get here is just intense and long slabs of heavy sound that mutate around that stoner/metal/psych axis until this band is happy that they've exhausted every angle and stretched every boundary they could push against. This isn't to say that this doesn't sound like anything else out there,...but that this takes what this band does and goes way farther than most so-called exploratory bands would!"
- Psychatrone Rhonedakk
"This is a damn cool new band from Texas! This four piece really lay down some cool psychedelic acid rock, with dual psychedelic guitars and long spaced out instrumental jams. The CD was totally improvised in the studio with no overdubs or as the band states, “frivolous foolery”. The opening of the CD is some loud, in your face distorted guitar before the band takes off into a long track featuring a lot of cool guitar solos and nice spacey second guitar as well. Heavy acid rock stuff with some outerspace delay guitar at times. "Hard Drive Explosion" is next and is quite short (this is what they could salvage due to a sample rate error) after the 17 minute opening jam track. It is a more laid back and spacey sound to start but builds up nicely with dueling solo guitars. "Toad Patrol" starts off with a hard rocking stoner rock riff as this track takes you “out there” for 30 minutes of instrumental soloing and riff rock and spaced out sounds. The CD ends with 22 minute track, "Brassica". It is a bit more moody to start but more of the same, long nicely played solo guitar excursions to another universe. Fans of Samsura Blues Experiment and Outskirts of Infinity will dig this band. A pretty cool debut if you like long jammed out guitar solo acid stoner rock, like I do!"
- Lowcut (Denmark)