5 out of 5

Label: digital self-release

Produced by: Skullflower (?)

Peaceful burbles from the machine of output that is Matthew Bower.

With some mish-mashed Pink Floyd song titles – “Shine on You L.A. Machine” and “Welcome To Crazy Diamond” – and, according to his notes, a nod to Skynyrd, Bower hazes and shimmers through vaguely Total-esque territory on the opener, and then some of his more blissful-style psyche on the latter of these two long-running tracks.

‘Shine’s production places it closer to Total: its wall of sound shimmer is rounded at the edges, making it a bit more readable as music instead of noise. As it progresses over its 13 minutes, some wild guitar licks slowly, slowly become more prominent, though never to the point of pushing the track into overdrive: it remains on its own wave of swirls and distortion, linking it to early VHF-era work (hence the Total reference).

‘Crazy Diamond’ gets closer to Sunroof!’s burbles, but it’s still well-seated in the guitar-forward realm of Skullflower. But it’s more prominent with its psyche-riffing over ‘Shine’s drone-like warbles, and digs on backwards noises that do a kind of ascending (and descending) staircase for 22 minutes, pushing in and out of clarity – battling with the background distortion – to keep it engaging throughout.

Very, very listenable slices of the SF sound, that touches on different shades of the Bower spectrum.