(Progressive Rock / Avant-Prog) Kalutaliksuak - Kalutaliksuak - 2007, WavPack (image+.cue), lossless

Bizarre band makes bizarre music. In the early 90s, inspired by the Inuit mythology, KALUTALIKSUAK created long aural excursions mixing compositional and improvisational expertise with strange vocalization similar to northern shamanic senseless chanting. Something futuristic, something psychedelic, definitely evoking specific images and emotions, their music had an amazingly hallucinatory quality and was much in the vein of the UK free festival scene. Textured keyboards interact with swirling and swishing phased guitar, all the while underpinned by groovy bass-lines and trance inducing electronic beats… After more than ten years of oblivion, the best parts of KALUTALIKSUAK rehearsal-tapes from 1993 have been re-stored and re-mastered by Alisa Coral of SPACE MIRRORS. "If this work came out in the mid 90s during the second uprise of the Space-Rock genre, they would be celebrities now.” – she says. (6 tracks - 53 min.)

"The first track -They Shall Catch You Up for Sure- begins with synthesizer soundscapes and gurgle. This is very psychedelic and experimental stuff. A weird track! -While He Sits in Ice Cracking a Whip Around- is a rather funny jam and its atmosphere reminds me of Hawkwind’s Douglas in the Jungle a bit. The guitar has some funky feel. Another rather strange and dark number. The more well-defined, rather relaxed -What Are Your Feet Eating?- comes next including nice, light guitar work and also some vocals. This is a dreamy, excellent track with heavenly keyboards and a wah wah solo. -They Usually Eat Humans- has a really odd atmosphere. It is a psychedelic, slower and tangled track with some beat, clavinet, UFO sounds and vague guitar. The scary-sounding narration adds the feel of sci-fi/horror movies. -Crow-quill Clothing- has sequences and weird noises. This is the shortest track on the album and also possibly the weakest one, but still pretty nice, hallucinatory ambient. The 15:39 long -Put This Sucling inito Her Head- is a quit relaxed track with programmed drums. The airy keyboards bring in a bit of New Age-styled atmosphere, although this is much more psychedelic of course. The track has a guitar solo and sort of fusion stuff; after five minutes we hear some keyboard soloing. I’m sort of reminded of Kitaro... I must say that Kalutaliksuak really was a rather unique band, and it’s great that we now have the opportunity to hear their mostly instrumental, electronic freak-outs." – by Dj Astro at Psychotropic Zone (Finland) (July 2007).

"Kalutalkiksuak is (or was perhaps; the music was recorded back in 1992-93, remastered by Alisa Coral of Space Mirrors) a Russian improvisational trio that explores a deeply spacey but also very progressive style of music. Things kick off with keyboardist Vladamir Konovkin providing a weird retro 1950's sci-fi soundscape in the opening cut, They Shall Catch You Up For Sure, before it morphs quite organically into an angular King Crimson style jam with throbbing bass courtesy of Bath Gremlin and excellent guitar by Alexander Chuvakov while Konovkin's electronic soundscapes continue to shift and explode throughout. Awesome start to the album! While He Sits in Ice Cracking a Whip Around is built around the complex interplay of bass and guitar, with a cold electronic beat and off-kilter, alien funky keyboards brewing beneath, rising to the surface in spacey washes of sound. What Are Your Feet Eating takes a more low-key approach, with jazzy piano, but still retains the complexity and spaceiness of the previous pieces, but this time with uniquely rhythmic and moody vocals from Chuvakov. He also does some outstanding lead guitar work on this piece. They Usually Eat Humans is, as the title might suggest, quite dark, more experimental, with dissonant keyboards swirling around a plodding rhythm. Crow-Quill Clothing features a racing synth sequence and chunky bass while distorted guitar and synths wail and screech throughout it, like some kind of eerie and monstrous dialogue. The final 15-minute piece, Put This Sucking Into Her Hood, slows things down for an atmospheric (but still rhythmic) finale of churning synths, spacey textures, and noodling leads that follow their own eccentric directions, dipping and dancing around and with each other, meandering like rivers through space. While I wouldn't call this either space or rock in the traditional sense, it combines elements of both in a wholly fresh and original fashion that is sure to please both space rock fans and anyone into music that explores the outer spaces of creativity." – by Jeff Fitzgerald at Aural Innovations (USA) (#38 January 2008).