Dom – Edge of Time
Dom was a krautrock band that was more obscure than your first pair of socks. They made a personal appearance on Earth–more precisely Dusseldorf, Germany–from 1969 through the early ‘70s and recorded a really captivating and incredibly nice-sounding folk / psych / electro-acoustic merger in early 1972 called Edge of Time. According to the liner notes, Dom was also “the name of an acid trip you could stay on for nearly two days. You will hear this influence throughout the tracks.” Since they only recorded this one album, let us take a blow-by-blow look at it, shall we? “Introitus” begins with a flowing atmosphere of gorgeous acoustic guitar picking and strumming, and some really brain-massaging flute and tablas that are all very beyond right on. About four minutes along, the music suddenly dissolves into an abstract collage full of cymbals, bells and hectic electronic static panned to and afro. Some sparse, somber organ notes are then sustained, joined later by nice acoustic guitar strums that fade in, then percussion. After the organ takes a nose-dive, there is a sudden stop. A pensive organ field with subtle disruptions opens “Silence” and slowly segues into more supremely mellow, distant, atmospheric jamming with some nice inaudible muttering.
Another garbled electronic interlude interrupts, tamely panned back and forth around your head–this time with vocal snatches and flute. Eventually, this all morphs back into the organ sound encountered at the beginning. On the title track, some very distant, ascending and descending guitar reverb welcomes more static and low-end electronics with organ. A pretty acoustic guitar melody picks up again, this time with a dark, drifting electronic background, followed by some really strange, muffled jamming. After another sudden stop, we’re back to the melody again with a sullenly intoned deep space poem. The fourth and last track, “Dream” closes out this whole affair with your feelin’s. An opening cloud full of xylophone, bells and cymbals coalesces into a dark rumble that gets louder and louder, only to end shockingly with a lone piercing tone. More guitar / bass / tabla jamming follows with another sudden stop, as a very quiet smoke of sparse xylophone tones, muted cymbal hits and an extended percussion racket fade out this absolutely mesmerizing album. In sum, since they only ever played a few live shows and produced one lone album in the early ’70s, Dom was quickly relegated to a highly respected corner in the dustbin of krautrock history. Nevertheless, Edge of Time will always maintain a sweet spot in the hearts of those in-the-know.
Label: Melocord Catalog Number: ST-LP-D 001 Format: LP Packaging: LP jacket Tracks: 4 Country: Germany Released: 1972 More: Discogs
Text ©2010 Arcane Candy
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