La Otracina is drug music—more specifically, marijuana music. Not surprisingly, their MySpace page declares that their sound is of "cocaine riffs, mushroom freakouts, hashish metal, and fuzz-drunk jazz-rock." Personally, only a couple of those drugs come to my mind while listening to their CD, Woven Wanderers, released on drummer and vocalist Adam Kriney’s Colour Sounds imprint. And I really think that listening to this CD is best complemented by smoking a good amount of Mary Jane.

Much of Woven Wanderers consists of guitars drenched in reverb, far off choir sounds, and meandering synthesizers. These washy, outer space sound-scapes effectively summon up the feeling you get after taking far too many hits off the bong, your consciousness floating away to that world where objects are bereft of meaning. As most people—I'm sure—like to mix their musical experiences with an intoxicant of choice, this is not a bad thing at all. Occasionally La Otracina pick up the pace and do fuzzy rock jams that sounds like a jazzier, less heavy Acid Mothers Temple. Even at these moments, where the music has a harder edge, the ghost of weed-induced lethargy still hangs thickly.

It also strikes me that the type of ‘60s/’70s progressive/psychedelic/space rock music that this stuff harkens back to, particularly Hawkwind, is also couched in an anti-capitalist, stoner mentality, given form with music. One could also say that the lack of direction and deformation of structure in such songs reflect a drugged apathy of defiance. Woven Wanderers definitely wanders in this way, with little concern for its destination.

It should also be noted that I did not actually listen to this album, or write this review for that matter, while stoned.

Words: Alessandro Keegan
Photo: La Otracina

La Otracina "Woven Wanderers" Tour Dates:

Mon, 4/13, The Kickstand, Gainesville, FL w/ NOMENCLATURE, THE FUTURE NOW, TANKS IN SERIES

Tues, 4/14, X-Records, Greenville, SC w/ ORCHARD

Wed, 4/15, Dude Manch (house show, 618 E. Franklin), Richmond, VA w/ YARDWORK, CAVES/CAVERNS

Sat, 4/18, LA OTRACINA with X-RAY EYE-BALLS, PSYCHO THRILLER, and 1 more TBA, at Alphabeta, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY.

Fri, 4/24, LA OTRACINA plays the NAAM Record Release Show! Come celebrate with us and our brothers as they release their first album, location/venue still pending.

Wed, 4/ 20, LA OTRACINA at The Stone (you know, John Zorn's avant garde club?), East Village, NYC, NY. We play at 8pm sharp, it's just us playing, 1 set, $5!




Like what we're doing here? Just a little pocket change gives Visitation Rites food to live on.

The prolific Adam Kriney is perhaps best known as a drummer, hammering it out freestyle for a handful of Brooklyn-based psychedelic and improv outfits on the Colour Sounds Recordings label (Dragonfrynd, Owl Xounds, La Otracina), which he himself runs.

With Vorg Vessel (Cut Hands), his first solo outing, this Boston expat sets down his sticks and sinks his claws into a classic Lowrey organ and a keyboard, presumably cheap and battery-powered. A disclaimer in the liner booklet informs us that “The Queen of Fish Mountain” (5”) and “Illuminated by Stripes” (3”) are 100% synthesizer and sequencer free. Whether Kriney is trying to paint himself as a purist or making some kind of sweeping statement about the current state of electronic music is irrelevant: rarely has the sound of two droning instruments grinding against one another been so varied and beautiful.

“The Queen of Fish Mountain” and “Illuminated by Stripes” share an old, almost archival feel, like the sleepy krautrock soundtrack to a German expressionist film played back over a warped VHS tape. Like Kriney’s other projects, Vorg Vessel pulls off fine balancing act the ad-lib and the scripted: Kriney is constantly churning out minimal melodic ideas, but they keep getting bogged down in a swamp of delay and oversaturation. Cyclical circus melodies bend into jarring two-note intervals before opening out into the air, reminding us of the power of simple combinations of notes to return us to the peace of the womb or make our hair bristle.

More than anything else, however, the two Vorg Vessel discs allow us to lose ourselves for a time in the pure, throbbing frequencies of the Lowrey. Organ sounds we’ve all heard a thousand times before magically reconnect with the feelings we attached to them as children: the Gothic menace of a bass tone, the astral visitation of a high tremolo. This offering is elegantly packaged in a slimline DVD case, with art by Peter Friel and two lovingly spray-painted flying saucers—perhaps the perfect metaphor for the music inside.

Limited edition of 50. Organ help by Tracy Hatch.

Words: Emilie Friedlander

Originally published on Foxy Digitalis in December, 2008.




Like what we're doing here? Just a little pocket change gives Visitation Rites food to live on.