My Review: The Dharma Chain -Nowhere

 

The Dharma Chain -Nowhere

Music continues to fly, to move, to disregard boundaries, treaties, and to run, walk and taste uninterrupted thrills of connection.

Such is the case with this Australian band who emigrated from their home country to Berlin and present their debut album. Exactly like their real life, their artistic life also demonstrates a willingness and ability to move into different zones, to delve with intelligence and perfectly oiled muscles into the most acerbic psychedelia, with the mighty flushes of garage rock and a slight inclination towards shoegaze, all with elegance and sensuality.

But there is also a vigorous, almost aggressive impetus, calmed by a truly remarkable maturity, aided by a production that enhances the edges and smooths them out perfectly. The compositions create a wide emotional, visual state, sealing the amalgam between dance and introspection, with moments of sweetness as in the case of Her Head, a mental vessel that sways between a guitar arpeggio and a powerful distortion, until accelerating while maintaining a dreamlike status.

When Clockwork arrives, one feels a strange joy: it will be given by the tension of an almost hallucinatory feedback, the murky bass and a guitar that sounds like a sitar in search of an embrace, or the two voices embracing. 

YSHK (You Should Have Known) is a gentle miter, leading to awareness thanks to unavoidable guitar on fire that could have come from the Bristol area of the early seventies, backed by heavenly synths.

The more you visit these songs, the greater the involvement, the more the experience drags the listener into becoming a distinct identity, with a rising body temperature as a gift, almost causing a pleasant feverish state.

When the electric lullaby of Somewhere arrives, everything becomes poetry with brushstrokes that make the clouds blue, in a dreamlike space that decisively shows the shoegaze dimension of the group, plunging us into new, emerging needs, with the handkerchief swelling with tender tears.

The apotheosis comes with Greenlight, the most intense and elaborate moment, a necklace of corals that seize the light and give themselves the depth of darkness, in a state of palpable and enveloping tension. Chaos is trained, led to reflection, first clean and then intoxicated by an excruciating guitar and the combination of bass and drums that seem to protect the words, delivering an undeniable jewel.  A resounding, intense debut, a remarkable propensity to make music that is nomadic, confrontational but also serene, marvelling and shaking the listener's mind. 

One is transported to the zone of curiosity, where everything expands and is in no hurry to define itself. A big hug to the band and an immense thank you: it is works like this that make the listener a privileged and resounding beneficiary of splendid ‘mild torture', defining the word delight in a new way…

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

20 Giugno 2024

https://anomicrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-dharma-chain-nowhere