Khamsa Khala - Room With No Walls

Remember the heyday of 80s/90s ‘fourth world’ music? That canonical term coined by the erstwhile Jon Hassell to describe his musical approach as thus marrying ancient, indigenous instrumentation with state-of-the-art sound-forging technology? Turns out it’s alive and well and breathing fire again, thanks to the sturm und clang of Khamsa Khala, an enigmatic duo comprised of ethnotechno marauders Don Poe and Neville Harson. They released an earlier recording on the Lens Records imprint in 2010, All Rites Reversed, and this follow-up (well over eight years in the making) demonstrates they haven’t missed a step. Chock full of a bevy of rich and ornate percussive textures, keening, campfire atmospherics, and swampy, obfuscating electronics, they enact a literal tribal cabal that finds them reaching for the skies and across untold eons and epochs. In essence, the duo bend time much in the way their respective influences do; we’re talking Mssrs. Steve Roach, O Yuki Conjugate, Rapoon, Jeff Greinke, Vasilisk, Hybryds, Jorge Reyes, Steve Shehan, the aforementioned Hassell, and a whole gaggle of sonic rainmakers for whom Khamsa Khala needs give their due. But sonic antecedents aside, not many choose today to truck in these wicked, heat-hazy, mind-melding tableau, and for that, the duo are to be commended for bringing these exciting, energizing, densely woven constructs to our parched ears.

1. The Morning Embers