OFF: Pseudo Sun

[Andreas Stuewe]

Juba Nurmenniemi of Pseudo Sun has just made 2 vinyl LP´s of some wonderful
music:

1. PSEUDO SUN: Live ghosts

As the title suggests this is a live album, with the sound quality being very
good. The two tracks on Side One were recorded at the German Hawkwind Festival
in June 2000 with the line-up of Juba on bass & vocals, Mats Singh on guitar,
Eric Lindesvaerd on drums + guests Santtu Laakso (of Dark Sun) and Scott Heller,
both on synths + fx. The first one is the old Darxtar classic "Metal Fatigue"
which really rocks, the second one is a 14 min version of "If I only had time"
which was first released on PS´s second album "Atomic Dogs don´t bark". This
live version features a longer jamming middle part which really is space rock as
it should be.
Side Two starts of with "Circle of light", an instrumental 5 min excerpt of a
very long slow jam recorded at a club called Lilla Maria in Stockholm in Dec.
2000. The line-up is the same as on Side One but without the guests. Second
Track is the classic "Signs of Life", from the very first ever PS gig at the
Space Rock Festival in Jonkoping/Sweden, Aug. 15th, 1998. Again featuring the
same 3 piece line-up this version is played much faster than the original studio
version, especially Juba´s heavy bass (Rickenbacker) playing is fantastic. The
last track is a 3 and 1/2 min extract of a pretty fast jam at the Hamburg
festival called "Time storm".
All in all a great live album. For those people who don´t like Juba´s voice (and
there are some I believe) there´s not too much of it on this album.

2. ACHILLEUS: Achilleus

Achilleus is the band that existed from 1982 to 1984 and featured future Darxtar
members Patric Danielson on drums, Juba on bass and "Dark Lord" Soren Martensson
on Keyboards. Bjorn Jacobson played Guitar & and sang all the (swedish) songs.
The only released material by this band was a single ("Allt vi begar"/"Obergs
Praster") and a private Cassette ("AV"). So this LP is a sort of "Best of" of
the recorded unreleased stuff which must be some 30 or 40 songs according to
Juba. It contains 8 songs altogether, 5 on Side One, 3 on Side Two.
Musically this is more progressive rock than spacerock, but hints of the Darxtar
sound of are already there, at least partly. Ok, the swedish language might
sound strange to some ears, but the music itself and the songs (real songs)
are very good. "Snabbare an Tiden" features even some synth swooshing and is a
more spacier song. The best track to my ears is the first one on side 2
"I vantan pa nagot Battre", some 12 min long.
Overall it´s a very interesting and enjoyable album, sounding nothing like being
made in the early 80´s, feels more like produced in the early 70´s. Apart from
that I cannot compare this band to any other band, the sound being quite unique.
For those people who don´t like Juba´s voice (and there are some I believe) he´s
not singing on this album (well, apart for some backing vocals I assume).


You can get these ltd. ed. LP´s (Achilleus is limited to 150 copies, and PS only
130 copies) via:

warp9.to/pseudosun

the prices are:

10 UK pounds
15 Euro
20 US dollars

including p&p


Andreas