UK festival faves Rubber Bus here with another record of spacey electronics made with synths, guitars, and electronics, with addition of guest vocalists and poets. Welcome To Karmic City (NO LABEL) is released under the management of Paul Khimasia Morgan, occasional contributor to these pages, now operating as the organiser of “Brighton Ambients”, alongside his good works promoting minimal free improv in the electro-acoustic mode; I see Rubber Bus were on the bill for 2025’s “Kozfest”, along with such luminaries as The Bevis Frond and Hawklords; the event not only has DJs and psychedelic lightshows, but there’s even a stage named after Nik Turner, the wild man space-cadet of the original Hawkwind. I mention all this to help the reader situate the freaky music on offer here, and to indicate there’s a strain of free-festival hippiedom in this country that started in the early 1970s and passed through the rave culture in the 1990s, and just won’t go away. If only these Mogadon-merchants had a fraction of the manic energy you can hear on In Search Of Space…Dave Brock, old as he is, can still knock these sleepy pretenders into a cocked space helmet. Some of the Rubber Bus music is pretty credible actually, but I wish they’d dispense with the “relevant” poetry and lame attempts at rapping, and just settle down into some honest Grateful Dead noodling mode.
Speaking of Paul Khimasia Morgan (PKM), he’s also one third of Mazenta Z, whose Doubt Thou The Stars Are Fire (NO LABEL) was also included in this envelope; Paul here showing his prowess for effects-laden electric guitar, alongside Roger Harmar, the director of Brighton New Music and sometime collaborator with Phil Durrant; plus guitarist Paul Lewis, whom we are told is a “veteran of the psych/progressive scene in Japan” where he also played the Hammond organ. PKM has performed some highly challenging “minimal” pieces in the past with his half-a-guitar, producing some cutting-edge improv, while this side of him is quite different – the music is discursive and long-form, with nary a second of time unfilled by these processed, languid guitar and synth tones, even spacier than Rubber Bus above. It’s tempting to file this music alongside Klaus Schulze or Ash Ra Tempel, but it’s some way apart from progressive rock, whatever the credentials of Lewis may be. If anything the performers are more informed by the precepts of so-called “Onkyo” music, by which I mean they create a peaceful and respectful space for each other, and everyone listens to what the other players are doing. Both from 14 July 2025.