Second Sufis - Seven Rays

1. Soil of Contentment (4:15) 2. Annihilation (13:22) 3. The Seven Rays (12:07) 4. Transit (7:15) 5. Sun Zero (11:30) 6. Somewhere in the 20th Century (4:18) 7. Space Ghost (18:14)

Total Running Time: 71:01

The face of music has never been the same since the advent of instruments driven by electrical/electronic phenomena. Whatever harmonic innovations and inspirations jazz brought to classical music via the likes of Stravinsky pale in comparison to the wave of experimentation, bizarreness, and expression that the electric guitar would ignite, inciting thousands of musicians worldwide to create their own visions of how music was to be played and interpreted. With the digital revolution and the increased ease with which musicians can now acquire studio equipment, however, things just went overboard.

It would be a safe bet to assume that a band like Second Sufis would find its existence impossible had it not been for the waves of technological development that the music world has witnessed during the last few decades. Sure, the smothering, improvised, pseudochaotic atmospheres that its members have come up with are in the end the result of the band's own vision and gut instinct, but the form of Seven Rays is a statement of technology envisaged to suit art's own ends. If you remember the sonic mesh of effects, percussive surprise, and virtually atonal instrumentation on most of the second half of King Crimson's Three of a Perfect Pair, and can see its density and abstraction incremented exponentially, congratulations. You have an idea of what this album sounds like.

Seven Rays is a rather hard album to describe by means other than such a comparison, as ambience, experimental noise, or avant-garde improvisation are terms that fall flat on their face when trying to encompass the musical focus of Second Sufis. If anything, imagine a band dabbling in that previously mentioned atonal instrumentation, surrounded by chaotically placed atmospheric percussion, the extremely rare and short-lasting semblance of harmony or melody, electronically foreign effects, and an absolute free flow of musical consciousness. Downside: Now imagine listening to that for more than an hour.

A band like Second Sufis, beyond any shadow of doubt, deserves praise for sticking to its guns and engaging in musical exploration that is bound never to reach any vague semblance of popularity. On the other hand, however, sticking to its guns and recording self-indulging improvisations such as the ones featured on Seven Rays means a collection of frayed nerves for the listener, as the lengthiest tracks on the album seem to drag on forever and soon cause one to distract oneself with other things and forget that the music is still playing. The approach in itself is not bad, as "Soil of Contentment" and "Somewhere in the 20th Century" do get their point across in their approximate four-minute duration, while "Annihilation" has some outstanding moments, but a sense of excessive abstraction, topped by unnecessarily lengthy tracks, was simply too much for this reviewer.

-by Marcelo Silveyra

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