ninehertz

Neptunian Maximalism are an intimidating band to listen to, never mind review. How do you even approach writing a review of something so kaleidoscopically unusual, how do you find the words when your brain can't even take in everything your hearing... Music usually of great lengths (this is well over an hour and a half long, across 3 LPs) and of such wild component parts - their range of sounds to date has been incredible and almost unfathomable to behold - krautrock, free jazz, drone, at different times or all at once.

Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu is a capture of several live recordings of the band at St John's on Bethnal Green in London. It is declared as a combination of visits to "3 Ragas of Indian classical music". I must confess a naivety into this level of specification, but it's intriguing to pick up on none the less, and the listen is unimpeded by that lack of knowledge - this is an incredible portrayal of another bow to their armoury, an imperious raga drone record.

The first four tracks are prefixed Raga Marwa. That its opening sounds of the whole record shimmer and vibrate like being immersed in a gong bath would be unusual elsewhere, but feels perfect for Neptunian Maximalism - as a starter, I can imagine what ever follows as the lucid wild dreams of the deeply meditative state, and its then only natural that it evolves into sonic drone akin to latter day Sunn O))) by the first track's end. There are moments where the notes rise through raga, fall with a crunching doom crash, long passages that feel equally mystical and menacing.

Raga Todi is the sound of the next three tracks. This appears to involve the incorporation of more traditional Indian instrumentation in this raga, more free form than the first too. There are what I lazily thought was the notes of sitar immediately - but it seems to be a surbahar, which a very quick search tells me is like a bass sitar... seventeen plus minutes of it as its focus on Alaap on Surbahar. Elsewhere there's a trumpet going wild, and even on the final track in this segment, with a semblance of structure erected atop a foundation of underlying beat that weirdly reminds me of Mezzanine era Massive Attack, it's still loose and free.

It ends with Raga Bairagi, beginning all slow, low, chilled and airy, then getting a touch darker, doomier, before exuberant chants and a heavier tone take us squarely into doom-drone. It is brooding, poised with threat, and dense - I'm in more familiar territories here, like Earthless recording White One, although losing none of its reflective, magical creation, even when blackened shrieks from the shadows enter. It ends with gong and the return of Indian instruments, building toward dark drone claustrophobia.

This must have been a spiritual performance to witness, a dense experience as much meditative as it was musical. Neptunian Maximalism continue along their path, this acting as further proof of their all encompassing experimentalism, through psychedelic drones and Indian raga.