Over eight years ago, core members of San Francisco’s SubArachnoid Space gathered one evening with some compatriots for a night of musical freedom, an outlet for some much-needed out-there jamming in the SubArachnoid Space practice room (dubbed Room 13, as that was its number at the complex). As were most things at the time, the evening was recorded, but nothing came of it initially and the tapes were misplaced for years. Recently they were found once again, and finally given the attention they deserved. Recorded on seven tracks of an old ADAT, the session was transferred to a better system and improved as much as possible. Mixed and remastered and now sounding as powerful as the original session, the songs are presented here as Transitional Phase, a fitting name given the timing of the gathering.

Three then-members of SubArachnoid Space participated: Mason Jones (guitar), Melynda Jackson (guitar), and Chris Van Huffle (drums). They were joined by former member Jason Stein (bass) and Gravitar noise-maker Geoff Walker (guitar, brass, vocalizations).

The jams recorded here range from the first phase’s free-wheeling deep psychedelia and subterranean sonics to the quiet horror-filmisms of the second phase and the third phase’s experimental rock, taking cues from the motorik voyages of Neu! and the guitar-laced epics of Ash Ra Tempel as well as the fuzz-drenched sounds of cohorts Bardo Pond and Comets on Fire. The fourth phase rides toward interstellar liftoff on massive waves of sound, while the fifth continues right where the previous piece leaves off and accelerates into old-school space rock infused with totally modern noise chaos. The sixth phase, a much-needed calm between storms, creates some kind of surreal psych-Western atmosphere, like peyote-laced Morricone. The final track is a studio-manufactured Frankenstein creation, eleven minutes crafted from sections of the other songs and coerced into a lengthy drone-rock monster.

Worth the long wait, Transitional Phase offers a plethora of mind-altering amusements, suited for either night-tripping at home or blasting out of a convertible rolling down the highway, pursued by bats all the way down the line. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.