Settle in for a long, weird ride. SBE have never been about brevity, and some of the songs here stretch out nearly to infinity, drifting to the furthest reaches of your subconscious before rolling back in waves of psychedelic splendour.
This cross-legged, wizard-sleeved trio from Berlin bake psych-metal, free-flowing ragas, ever-expanding prog and even delicate folk into a meaty pie of cosmic proportions, and this, their fourth full-length, is their most mind-melting yet.
Opener Vipassana is a ten-minute magic carpet ride through a hazy purple future and it perfectly complements the album’s centrepiece title track. Clocking in at over a quarter of an hour, this myth-making epic is an absolute monster, like if Hendrix joined the bomb-throwing version of Amon Düül and they all ascended to heaven.
Just when you thought this kind of long-haired noodling had painted itself into a corner, Samsara Blues Experiment bend it into spectacular new shapes and sounds. You can’t dance to it but it’ll probably mutate your DNA and you’ll live forever beyond the quivering orb of consciousness. Something like that, anyway.
