Is SideWave’s ‘Glass Giant’ Self-Aware?

Let’s just go ahead and say what SideWave fans have been wanting this release the whole time since 2009, a full-length album to proclaim that SideWave isn’t just another ninetiestolgic trip into the lush.

Maybe it’s a new thing that bands who release their work online will overtime, create album equivalents in short spurts of creativity. The separation between live SideWave fans and those of us who experience them in the matrix, is great where these guys perform songs they haven’t yet released.

Therefore music listeners will be excited for the release of the full-length Glass Giant for different reasons. For those who are looking for an album that fills aural space with sonic sound from wall to wall, then this is the release you’ve been waiting for!

Release is the word I use for these things because I reserve the world album for something you can hold in your hand, before I decide to apply it to something restricted to a download.

I’m going to start loosening up with that to say that this is an album with thoroughly connects from beginning to end kind of like those car rides with friends where you’re blasting an album and anticipate the next track.

That moment happens between the tracks Supersonic and into Sundrop, the same feeling you have when listening to the first two Smashing Pumpkins albums.

Decades ago a good friend of mine and I went to Lollapalooza where I was first exposed to an amazing band named Failure, during their outstanding and still relevant album Fantastic Planet, which I recall with the first track off of this album, Grounded when they tap into the essence of Heliotropic. 

In the case of Failure, it’s the last song on the album which still blows me away as another dynamic thrown in my direction where that energy is how SideWave starts this album; I’ve always wondered when someone would do that and so they have.

Their second song Lace is a bit of a stumble, a bit of a yawner for me and not the most exciting part of my drift through space, which makes the album seem like it’s starting over again with the third track Supersonic.

The track Honest To God made this bitter atheist wonder if I didn’t get tricked into listening to a Christian rock band before I remember hearing some of the most amazing music I’d ever listened to on Christian radio, years ago. Of course, how can anyone naturally be dismissive of the idea of a deity when adrift among the stars?

While I’m talking about being adrift, if you can imagine, this music is more deserving of being in orbit around large spacial bodies, such as with the catchy and swerve heavy Pines, a personal favorite for the way the bass swings the rest of the song around.

Glass Giant is confident and yet still remains in the shadow of those bands which came before with tracks like Romance Is Dead where they seem to run out of steam or as mentioned earlier, the poppy but guarded Lace, which is best pick as a single off of this entire album.

I don’t have a problem that they’re likely in the same key through this whole thing. I could solve the problem by listening to the tracks individuality but I like how refreshing some of these tracks are such as Illusion Of Light. The only real weakness here is how vocally timid Phil Golyshko is through many of these songs. It would be good to hear him pull away from the mundane and experiment a bit as it would make for a far more fascinating album.

If you haven’t picked up on this yet, when it comes to this album, my tastes are nostalgically heavy with the deep cuts against the unnecessary comparison to the gaze rockers before them. And if I were to treat this with the respect a full length album deserves, I’m going to say they aren’t quite there yet.

At a certain point the album starts to drone and have no doubt they could go numb during their set. But space rock fans are multi-aware so they’ll certainly lock right in. For the rest of us though, we need a track like Hearts to bring us right back to the principles the nation of Sidewave are founded on.

This could all be a endurance experiment for them and they can just sort through the tracks that stick to familiarize themselves for future albums. But there is no doubt that with the help of Aaron Harris of Pusifer and ISIS who mixed this album, this debut is the album fans have been waiting for.

Pure Phase Ensemble 4's Live At SpaceFest Is Too Short-Lived To Enjoy With One Listen

In December of 2014, the fourth edition of SpaceFest brought together some of the biggest names in progressive rock from all sides of the Pecos — if the Pecos were the center of everything — to Gdańsk, Poland. Among them was Mark Gardner (Ride) and Ray Dickaty (Spiritualized 1997-2002/Moonshake 1994-1997/Skree 1992-1996).

Their purpose was to complete the entirety of the annual Pure Phase Ensemble which is a workshop of collaborative musicians who, no doubt, secretly compose their work to feature it for only one performance in the festival. Like, wow! If that doesn’t sell tickets, right?

Back in the late nineties, I used to walk through the local city arts district from my school to home almost daily and I’m glad I had no choice as I was fascinated with the area. Who wouldn’t want that kind of stimulation? It all made perfect sense, I was studying the visual and theater arts and I didn’t have to leave it all behind, I could still living within that climate.

During those walks, I would take my walk/discman with me and listen to my soundtracks to go with the urban artistic scenery, such as eerie-industrial space rock and whatever else helped settle and guide the wandering mind. One of those albums was Field Of The Nephilim’s Earth Inferno, which I thought was my first purchasing mistake because as my first Nephilim purchase, it’s not a studio but rather a live album.

If I remember correctly, I shunned it before I became obsessed with it. I never thought I would revisit it again aside from a casual listen, until I heard Pure Phase Ensemble 4.

The aptly named Notatki starts bordering on a RadioHead beat pattern before it turns into epic space rock with the build of distant guitar rings before it rocks out. And since I’m tracking a lot of comparisons here already, I’ll also say that Dickaty’s improvised sax performance also sounds at time as if I’m listening to a lost recording of early Bauhaus live. At 15 minutes, you would think it would be a good sample of the entirety of the album experience but it isn’t.

I’ve always enjoyed walking through underpasses. I went out of my way to go through this one and always had spare batteries to make sure the music didn’t stop.

The track that follows Zostan Na Noc triggers that live Nephilim album I find myself cornered with but it’s not until Peter Song that I’m a little disappointed with the recording quality. I’m one of those who didn’t hear the difference between a 128kbp quality MP3 when that In Rainbows album was widely available for download and so I defaulted back into that when listening to this one. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to the Space Fest people to do a studio release of this and throw the live recording in as a freebie? It would also make sense to go straight through the board for the recording, which I believe the Nephilim did with Earth Inferno.

But let’s be honest about some of this space rock stuff, if you can hold a note for more than several beats and keep cycling it, you only need a little push from a ingested substance or at least willing to be mesmerized with minimalism to drift with the music, so you can just toss out Intro like, for realz. Yet, that won’t do for a live recording as they’re all probably getting on stage at the moment of that intro so yeah, forget I said anything.

Wait, what’s Jimmie doing on drums?

In its entirety, this album is very pop heavy which we can thank Mark Gardner’s for, his vocal melodies aren’t restricted since his pre-set tenor gives him a lot of flexibility to accent and pose to the music. All of this adds up to a very versatile set of live recordings that’s too short-lived to enjoy with just one listen.

I feel also as if it would have been a better idea to switch the closer Happy Dancing Woman with Morning Rise and we’d have a real closure for the overall effect of the album. Despite all of that, we’ve got to hand it to SpaceFest and especially Nasiono records for capturing rare and precious moments like these.

SpaceFest returns this year with a new ensemble from which there will definitely be a record ready around this time next year? But check these guys out and get behind them!

Facebook (PPE),

@PurePhaseEnsemb,

Facebook (SF),

@SpaceFest_PL,

BandCamp