Sons of Birches "Wooden Head and several more scenarios"

Country: Canada 
Genre(s): Psychedelic
Label: Sour Orange Records
Format: CD, digital
Release date: March 1, 2021
Tracklist

1. Wooden Head Parts 1 to 3
2. Valley of the Skids
3. Cosmic, Girl
4. Variations on the Title Theme from the Situation Comedy "Parks and Recreation"
5. Evil Mofo
6. Forest Floor
7. Lost Johnny/We Took the Wrong Step Years Ago 
8. Radigue Got the Bass/Mama Just Wants to Rothko Chapel All Night Long
9. Song of the Tastemaker
10. We Didn't Want This Future
11. Chime On, You Crazy Dronehards

Line-up
Allister Thompson (The Gateless Gate) - all instruments, vocals

Description/Reviews:

A psychedelic prog rock album with an uncommon sense of humor. The album opens with the tripartite title track, a hypnotic and catchy affair that variously recalls The Velvet Underground with a dash of the more modern Spiritualized for good measure and is followed by the darker "Valley of the Skids" which describes an encounter at a seedy diner. The curveballs come with track 4, which is a hilariously serious treatment of the Parks and Rec. theme song. Really, Wooden Head has many moods and tones, like the righteous fury of "Evil Mofo" which skewers capitalists, or the charming and barbed "Song of the Tastemaker," which is a caricature of an impossible to please critic. "We Didn't Want This Future" returns to the hypnotic rock of the title track to spin a yarn about a robot apocalypse. Sons of Birches' tongues are firmly in their cheeks, but they aren't afraid to have fun. This album has a bit of something for everyone, and a generous helping of psychedelic effects to please fans of the genre.

Media/Samples
Song of the Tastemaker

The Gateless Gate "A Wider View"

Country: Canada
Genre(s): Instrumental Progressive Rock, Krautrock, Ambient, New Age
Format: CD, digital
Release date: May 1, 2019
Tracklist: 
1. I See Everything (8:15)
2. The Earth We Once Knew (5:32)
3. Landsat (5:33)
4. For David Attenborough (3:46)
5. Wise View (4:38)
6. Lake Land (5:47)
7. So Vast (5:06)
8. Urban Landscape (4:13)
9. Volcanoes Of Kamchatka (5:56)
10. Plateau (12:30)

Total Time 61:16

Line-up: 
Allister Thompson - all instruments

Description/Reviews: 

First, this an eclectic and diverse collection that encompasses and expands upon all genres of instrumental music that the Gateless Gate has created since 2012: progressive rock, psychedelic pop, post-rock, ambient, new age, and Krautrock/kosmische.
Second, as the album cover indicates, the music suggests we take a wide-screen view of the beauty of our home and consider how lucky we are to live here...to live at all on this wonderful, (currently) habitable planet. 

Media/Samples 
Bandcamp (name your price)

Links:
Web page
Facebook

Khan Tengri "Aeons"

Country: Canada
Genre(s): Psychedelic, Space Rock, Krautrock
Format: digital
Release date: April 6, 2016
Tracklist: 
1. At The Mountains Of Madness (12:58)
   a) Arrival in Antarctica
   b) The disturbing scene at Lake’s camp
   c) The flight over the mountains
   d) In the aeon-dead Cyclopean city
   e) Fleeing from the horror
2. Kalpas (7:58)
3. Dualistic Stomp (5:23)
4. The Shining Sea (6:16)
5. No Beginning, No End (9:23)
6. The Holocene Extinction (5:28)
7. Hommage А Ligeti Et Feldman (5:03)
8. Maitreya Has Come, And All Is Renewed (5:20)
9. Silurian (10:38)

Total Time 68:27

Line-up: 
Allister Thompson (The Gateless Gate)
   With
Tim Timleck - drums and drum samples

Description/Reviews: 

The opening minutes have all the dread and foreboding of Lovecraft. An ominous drone with some swirling, barely audible chants mix with some skittering electronica to set up an atmosphere of impending doom. The eerie synths and drone provide a framework for some great guitarwork to build on....sounding like early Floyd and at one stage sounding exactly like a tortured scream. It builds into a kosmische soundscape, full of texture and atmosphere. What is evident is that early 70s German rock runs deep in this dude's blood, in both The Gateless Gate and Khan Tengri guises. The track culminates in some genuinely spooky wails and wooshes of synth...an epic track of kosmische horror.

Read the full review at dayzofpurpleandorange.blogspot.ca

Media/Samples 
Bandcamp

Links:
Web page
Facebook