Marc Edwards, Sakura Sakura (Three Variations)

Drummer-bandleader Marc Edwards returns with a further adventure into the psychedelic-electric-space-free music he has been getting together of late. This one gathers three different lineups for variations on the traditional Japanese song Sakura Sakura (Dog and Panda Records).

Essentially three different bands--Marc Edwards and Star Clusters, Marc Edwards and Slipstream Time Travel, and Mark Edwards and Sonos Gravis--each do a 20-minute electric collage of tumbling drums, multi-electric guitars, bass and sometimes keys soloing collectively and at various points sounding the traditional melody and doing variations around it.

The personnel features of course Marc Edwards, then various combinations of players that include Ernest Anderson III, Tor Snyder, Gene Janas, Takuma Kanaiwa, Alex Lozupone, Alexis Marcelo and Colin Sanderson.

It is very vibrant free rock, a sort of Ascension in the metal zone. It is bracing. You will either gravitate towards it by predisposition or not. And that has something to do with your open mind about a free metal blast or the opposite. I like it! You make up your own mind. But give it a hearing, by all means.