When it comes to ambient psychedelic music, this new collaboration between Eternal Tapestry and Sun Araw, arguably two heavy-weights of the genre, is akin to the landmark jazz summits between Thelonius Monk and John Coltrane or Ben Webster and Coleman Hawkins. Putting the names together makes you take notice, but when you actually listen to the end product you’re faced with a new level of excellence.
Recorded during the 2010 SXSW festival, Night Gallery is an entirely improvised piece broken into four parts. While the recording holds true to the roots of these bands’ psychedelic sound, this recording seems much more lush and full than previous records. Night Gallery grows slowly out of a churning chaos and gradually becomes meditative and hypnotic. Like any good psych record, Night Gallery can be trance-inducing, but also complex. I’m impressed by how much is going on underneath the surface of this music, even while everything is moving toward a common purpose.
There’s no doubt Sun Araw and Eternal Tapestry will both go on to make more excellent records, but Night Gallery should stand as a special piece in both bands’ catalogs. People always say it’s amazing what friends can do when they work together; Night Gallery is a fantastic document of what happened when these friends passed an evening together in Texas not so long ago.
Eternal Tapestry & Sun Araw – “Night Gallery III” [MP3]
Purchase Night Gallery via Thrill Jockey
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