PSI CORPS - Tekeli-Li
Psi Corps is a side-project by Alisa Coral and Michael Blackman who have already released three albums with their band Space Mirrors. Tekeli-Li is meant as the soundtrack for "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket", the only novel ever written by Edgar Allan Poe who is better known as a writer of short stories.
Using a freer approach than in their main band, the two Australians recorded this album live throughout July 2008. While Coral is playing synthesizers, bass, percussion, drums and theremin, Blackman solely focuses on electric guitar. Apart from the relatively short opener Party At Barnard’s (Is Over) – clocking in just under five minutes – the remaining five tracks are all between seven and fourteen minutes long, hinting maybe already at the improvisational nature of the music. As in Space Mirrors, we mostly get space rock sounds, although there is less structure and more instrumental meandering. The major feeling you will get is the juxtaposition between Coral’s busy use of instruments and Blackman’s sometimes endless seeming guitar solos, the latter making one wish that he would also switch instruments from time to time.
Tekeli-Li is eventually an interesting experiment, with some rewarding moments, but overall too impenetrable to really work on a sober mind. Le’ts say I prefer what these two Australians do in Space Mirrors, but their assured playing should still be incentive enough for friends of freewheeling psychedelic space rock to check out this album which is probably best suited to be listened to while reading the novel of the forefather of the modern horror genre.