Mugstar
Magnetic Seasons

Once again, cosmic psychedelia tackles what are the rules of the world of nature and physics. It is a typical and recurring fascination, an aspect that is central to the content of neo-psychedelia. If at the end of the sixties and in the seventies there was a usual connection between psychedelia and the world of nature, for its beauty and evocative charm, even the animal world, as well as the vegetal one, and there was an attempt to find a mystical approach, almost subordinate to nature and what is mother Earth, the music that bands like Mugstar, four guys from Liverpool, play today completely redefines this scheme.

We are faced with a new scenario. Something different and possibly something we must consider as the approach of a new generation to the world around us. Nothing strange, anyway. After all, the previous generation lived during the Cold War years and it seemed to be on the brink of a possible nuclear holocaust. The fear and horrors of World War II and the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still in everyone's eyes. But in the meantime, a lot of time has passed, and we can say that today humanity has overcome this fear. There is no longer this damned fear that we are all going to self-destruct, and humanity perhaps now also has a different approach to the world around it, is more aware and in a sense is again what was defined in the Middle Ages as 'homo faber fortunae suae'.

Of course, this new approach cannot ignore the historical confrontation between humanity and the forces of nature, considering on one hand that, obviously, a compromise is always something inevitable and perhaps the most right way; secondly, that probably for humanity to complete its evolved path, it must necessarily not rely on nature but overcome this bond and link, just as one day it will overcome what keeps it tied to the same Earth.

Mugstar is certainly not a new band in the psychedelic music scene. They have been around for about ten years and you have probably already listened to their records, you know what we are talking about and what music they play. The main derivation comes from the classic kraut music of the seventies (not coincidentally they also released a recording with Damo Suzuki), implemented obviously with drone elements typical of heavy-psych. Naturally, the new album, a double LP released by Rock Action Records and titled 'Magnetic Seasons', reprises this same type of elements and same path.

We are not faced with something that can be defined as easy listening or pop music. There is nothing easy in the contents of this album, in truth, and indeed the long duration of over seventy minutes might even be daunting. Two songs like 'Remember the Breathing' and 'Ascension Island' each have a duration of over fifteen minutes! We are practically talking about more than an hour of music in which these guys try in every way to go beyond the concept of space and time and practice their personal struggle against the forces of nature and the laws of physics.

We have been talking about magnetism since before the birth of Jesus Christ. The theme was central already in the thinking of the ancient Greeks and in ancient China, who first tried to extrapolate the contents of this branch of science, which was probably in some way then 'defined' by Sir James Clerk Maxwell in the nineteenth century and for what were his studies and discoveries in the field of electromagnetism. As for me, I'm not a scientist and it's useless for me to try to delve into the scientific content of the matter. However, damn it, what is it that holds us together, I mean, what force makes all the parts of our body stay attached to each other, instead of dispersing and dividing into billions of tiny fragments. All thanks to what is magnetism, probably. Then maybe in some way discussing magnetism is the same as talking about life, and once again we can conclude that there is no total opposition between humanism and technique and a contrast between science and the philosophy of thought. Each does not exclude the other. On the contrary. And this album, who knows, aims in some way to demonstrate this. It all happens in a way - incidentally - naturally and without any forcing. Listening to 'Magnetic Seasons', one is immediately struck by the force and fury and typically kraut groove and the drone elements and psychedelic sounds, but as the listening progresses, what happens is you find yourself completely immersed, enveloped within the sound of Mugstar and going back at this point becomes difficult for everyone. Because we are attracted, we are captured by what we could at this point define as a magnetic force. Try, then, to go back if you are capable. If you think you can overcome the laws of nature. Challenge it.