Thursday, October 20, 2011

Trippy Mushroom!

As much as the headline screams the involvement of inebriating/ narcotic substances, this isn’t about it. It might have something to do with it, depending on what you like listening to when you’re indulging in the aforementioned activities, but let’s not lose focus here – this blog is about the music.

Welcome to the Mushroom Lab. Delicious lounge and chillout music. The kind you can keep listening to. The kind you want to play when you’re sitting on a verandah overlooking a valley, with an almost Pandora-ish feel to it.

Mushroom Lab is an offshoot of the Andrew Sonin project (famous also for Pillshop and Sleepy Bears). It explores the realm of psy chillout with dub and electro elements. The music is deeply relaxing, easy and literally transports you to another dimension.

Each track has a distinct feel to it and also generates vibes and almost all of them have strains of traditional folk music from the Far East. Critics have been inclined to diss it as just another “spa music” album, which is tragic, because Mushroom Lab goes way beyond the music that plays at spas. The beauty lies in the detail, and the precision with which it is placed in each song. The smallest tick, the strumming of the harp, the flute, the electro effects, the faint traces of something that resembles a table – this isn’t music you listen to over a noisy table filled with beer. This is something you relish, something that you trip on – in the true sense of the word. It is music that is inebriating and requires no accompaniment.

You might think the songs get a little difficult to differentiate towards the latter half of the album, and perhaps loses a little of the heady feel it gives you at the beginning, but all in all, this is one Good Trip.

Disclaimer: This post does not intend to encourage substance abuse.

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