Kogumaza: Sevens / Mara
Low Point

textura readers of long-standing will already know we're suckers for coloured vinyl, so we could hardly tear ourselves away from gazing at Kogumaza's cherry-red seven-inch single to soak up its two tracks. That we did, however, long enough at least to be able to report on the trio's tripped-out, fuzz-toned psychedelia. In the A-side's “Sevens” (in 7/4 naturally), electric guitar melodies smothered in echo rear their grimey, peyote-fueled heads while pounding drum rhythms keep up a deathly tatoo underneath. The flip's “Mara” opens in a more peaceful mood (its name, after all, is taken from the Scandinavian name for the Sleep Paralysis phenomenon) and then unspools more loosely and open-endedly, the repeating bass line the glue that allows the guitar to splinter off into multiple directions, gradually getting heavier in the process. Like any two-track EP, Kogumaza's offers only a modest hint of what the band's about yet there's still enough for one to derive some sense of what an album-length presentation of its music would sound like.

June 2010