Friday 26 October 2012

Don Peyote - Heaven & Earth Review






Artist: Don Peyote

Album: Heaven & Earth

Label: Don Peyote Recordings

Release Date: 3rd December 2012


Andy Thomas’s stunning artwork gives a depth that truly reflects the album title “Heaven & Earth” and I hoped the musical content matched my anticipation as “Peyote Dreaming” is an album I love and often re-visit. So I’d been eagerly awaiting another release from Yvon Mounier (aka Don Peyote).


The opening track “Agartha” didn’t disappoint seamlessly drifting from repetitive synthetic tones and heavenly choral voices to sparse tribal beats and earthy atmospherics which is only heightened by the addition of Dan Richardson’s bamboo flute. This is followed by “Bouroukou” which envelopes you in slo-mo heavy tribal beats, dubbed tribal vocals, eerie spaced out synths and guitar. This track embodies my overall thoughts on this album and what I like about Yvon’s music. It may not be a catchy foot-stomper but he creates a wonderful atmosphere without heavily drawing on the obvious. Which I feel stamps his individuality in the psychedelic scene.


Another element which I feel sets Yvon’s music apart from other psy-dub artists is he’s often eclectic and sometimes funkier while still managing to retain his own trademark sound. “La Foret Perdue” for example is a blissful Gilmour’esque track perfect for chilling while the comically titled “Dub The Magic Derriere” is far from comical masterfully fusing psychedelic dub with Indian classical music while “Shake That Snake” provides a little something for those who like the more traditional reggae flavoured psychedelica.
Review by Woodzee