Sunray - Tomorrow

Mindblowing sounds from the dreamachine

Sunray sleeves unashamedly namecheck influences such as the Stooges, Velvets, Sun Ra, My Bloody Valentine, JAMC, Spacemen 3 and Byrds, so you get the drift. Utilising the Primal Scream approach of playing with whoever suits the musical mood, Jon Chambers forges supernova distillations of his obsessions and zoned-out visions with a hallucinogenic panache that spikes the heart of the sound with results that can be transcendental or mind-blowing. The second Sunray album (they started in 1992) sees Chambers joined by Will Thomas, Justin Morey and Phil Goss on various guitar-basskeyboards- drums combinations, planting new songs amid three previously-released EPs for Earworm. Sonic Boom collaborates on a climactic blast through Lou Reed’s Ocean and the mesmerising 24-minute Music For The Dreamachine, which invokes the Lamonte Young loopexcursions that first fired John Cale up.

Elsewhere, opiated ballads such as I Wish You Were Mine and Shake It resonate with a fragile druggy shimmer worthy of Syd Barrett, while the title track’s spangled organ dronescape could be mid-period Velvets tackling space-rock. The reverse-taped Technicolor wind-tunnel of Fall To Time is supposed to close the album, but up pops a ‘pills glorious pills’ hidden track, just to make sure. As truly psychedelic as it’s possible to get in 2007, this is one glorious racket.

Strawberry | STRAWBCD 005

Reviewed by Kris Needs
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