OFF: Black Sun Ensemble

[Douglas Pearson]

Hmmm ... I was in the middle of replying to this post yesterday afternoon
when the rolling blackout hit ...

BTW this is an utterly brilliant album.  Anyone into atmospheric
psychedelic guitar work or spacious "desert" sounds absolutely NEEDS this
album.  Much credit goes to Camera Obscura Records in Australia (Tony IS
sending promo copies to AI these days, Keith?) for fulfilling this public
service.

On Mon, 19 Mar 2001 17:49:07 -0500, K Henderson <henderson.120 at OSU.EDU>
wrote:
>FYI...interesting news - I'd been looking for this for quite awhile -
>glad I didn't find a crappy vinyl copy before I read this.  :)

Actually, there are apparently a couple songs on the vinyl version for
which the master tapes were lost, so they aren't on the CD (which replaces
them with, I believe, a couple tracks from the band's cassette releases
around the same time as the first LP).  I'm not positive, since I haven't
picked up this reissue yet (but I played a track on KFJC last week).

>THE BLACK SUN ENSEMBLE - S/T - Australia's Camera Obscura label has
>finally made us very happy by reissuing the first LP by this Arizona
>band led by some of the most utterly indescribable and magic guitar
>playing I've ever encountered. Note that there is another self-titled
>BSE album that some think was a bigger label reissue of this one but
>that is a completely different record.

Correct.  The second self-titled album was BSE's first release on Reckless,
followed by 'Lambent Flame' and ... uh ...(I think) the one with the carp
on it.  The s/t album on Reckless sounds much closer to this first one
(they're the only two that are all-instrumental IIRC) than their subsequent
albums do.

>Now, does anybody know about this other self-titled BSE disc?  I have (or
>have heard) three studio albums (including the 2000 release) and a live CD
>(that seems like it might be kinda rare as well).  So is the complete BSE
>(perhaps an unfortunate abbreviation) discography total six full-length-
>type releases?

I believe that is correct, since there's been the more recent studio album
on Camera Obscura and the live one.

Again, this is a GREAT album!  If the description sounds at all appealing,
you definitely want to pick up a copy ...

    -Doug
     ceres at sirius.com