The Myrrors – Archives I & II
Arizona-based desert-psych band The Myrrors are often as disorientating as an actual house of mirrors, fret-frenzy wail reflecting off Eastern dither and dusty fuzz, reappearing distorted and duplicated seemingly at random. Previous highs from the band have included epic battle scores for the meditative age, but the dominating part of these archival releases comes from a softer, more zen place still.
Archive I comprises just one 29-minute track in the form of “Lunar Halo” and last year the improv jam was cut down the middle to fill out both sides of a self-released cassette – now Cardinal Fuzz and Sky Lantern present it on vinyl for the first time. There’s no need to strap in though as both sides amount to little more than a pulsing shuffle, yet nevertheless this is transportative stuff. Simmering along on Velvet Underground-style string-drone and chattering percussion, chimes and cymbal shimmer, much of the opening exchanges sounds like an orchestra tuning up. Swooping drones then burrow into deep raga, ebbing and flowing from the throat of some oppressive ritual. Building in intensity and volume, the track drops out two thirds in all the same for a passage of weird effects, scrapes and screeches, the strings eventually breaking the gloom like the sun through the clouds, proceedings relatively quickly coalescing as they were for the sort of big pay-off demanded by this sort of thing. It’s a monumental listen all told.
Archives II is much shorter in turn, the product of two four-minute live-captures of the band from way back when and now presented on a single 7”. They’re consequently much quicker to the point, “Saturnus Ringer” a huge fuzzy blast of a cover of freeform Swedish progsters Älgarnas Trädgård and “Eyes Of Copper”, an excerpt of it any way, a meandering stream of blown-out psych-rock that’s just as damaging. Taken together they’ll catch the unwary out every time. Add in “Lunar Halo” and it’s beyond obvious why these cuts could no longer reside in the shadows.
Best track: “Lunar Halo”
~Archives I is released 26th January 2018 on 500-pressing vinyl via the collaborative efforts of Cardinal Fuzz and Sky Lantern Records. A download allows side A and B to play as a complete piece. Archives II is out now.~