Interview With A Wizard...... Union Collective

Wizard Union are a Sludgy Stoner band from Ann Arbor/Ypsilanti MI with an interesting sound and ethic. The band started in 2012, when whilst playing with seperate projects Drummer Larry and Guitarist Samir decided to jam together. They later invited Samir's workmate Aaron to play Bass in this project, and have been producing colon crushing Stoner riffs ever since.

I was fortunate to get to hear their new release Phantom Fury and speak to Collective member Samir about how they go about their thing. And no this is not a tale of tragedy, Vampire children and immortality, like the title would have you believe. It's far more interesting than that.

So why is their project any different from anything else? What makes them unique?

Wizard Union are part of a collective, the Wizard Union Collective, which is all about promoting and distributing their various projects. What does this mean? I hear you ask.

Samir: ''Overall it's about having musical freedom to do and play whatever we want without calling it Wizard Union. It's just a part of a larger body of work''. So potentially this approach could incorporate different projects from the same musicians, an opportunity to explore different sounds and genres as a group".

So why does this approach work for Wizard Union?

Samir; (There's) ''No deadlines. (We) release as much as we want from different members. Play shows with whoever is available within the collective. Right now we're still pretty young as a collective, but the three of us have been playing with each other for almost 5 years now, and we're open to jamming with others, and if we jam with someone else and it doesn't sound like Wizard Union, then we'll call it something else and release it''.

So, this is a metally musical melting pot, allowing freedom of expression for the musicians that are involved. An idea that I find fascinating and intriguing, so my main thought is how does it transpose itself to actual performance? Is it garbled, without direction or identity, or is it creative and purposeful?

Listening to Phantom Fury I am pleased to hear a great many influences sounds and also unintentional influences. There seems to be a hardcore punk ethic and I hear hints of EyeHateGod, Thrash even Surfer Rock! Whilst all this is evident it is not confused but instead pleasingly interesting and most importantly as heavy as a left hook from Chuck Norris. I asked Samir where influence were drawn from.

"I'd like to think Wizard Union is what happens when the three of us get together. I know the one band that binds us altogether is The Melvins, but we're all into different shit. I listen to a lot of punk and metal. It's funny you mention surf rock, because I'm definitely a fan, I just never consciously wrote anything like that. I was in a stoner/doom/thrash metal band called Lord Centipede, so maybe that's where the thrash comes from. I like the Eyehategod's Dopesick album.'' (C'mon you like EVERY EyeHateGod Album, just admit it to your self Samir - Editor)

Phantom Fury is full of heavy fuzz, grinding guitars and is held together well by the quality of Larry's drumming. Harsh Tokes Of The Wizards Pipe has grinding guitars, a hint of an eerie edge with a punky style vocal.  Whereas Cosmic Gatekeeper is fast paced, almost a punk track in its own right, until it hits the sludgy breakdowns, slowing the situation down with a pleasing groovy step down sequence.

Ancient Evil Bong chugs along joyously, hitting you aurally with guitar stabs and vocal aggression before taking an inspired turn with a breakdown and buzzing solo then it slowly works itself back into the faster paced chug of Doom.

Burn Bitches, Not Witches would be the crowd pleaser of the tracks, with a chorus that was made for shouting back at the mans and a great lead riff. Not just a pretty name! Samir; ''The chorus Burn Fucking Bitches Not Fucking Witches, came from something I read on the Internet somewhere. I thought, that's funny, I should make that a song title or use it for something. I have lists for song titles, album names, and band names for projects in the collective, for when I find shit like that. Once I had the title for the song I was like so what's this gonna be about? And it's about the Salem witch trial. I guess people can sing along to the chorus if they want to, but that's not what I had in mind when I wrote it.''

Burial Ground opens with a wet psychedelic sounding bass before leading into the most outright stoner riff on the album. My fist reaction was to head bang and there was no cause to stop throughout the entire track. Full of monumental riffage and drum attack, this is an absolutely storming track.

Phantom Fury takes off where Burial Ground finishes, continuing the stoner theme with great riffs but covers more ground musically than any other track, taking many turns and directions.

This is definitely a release that improves with each track in terms of sound and songwriting in my opinion. Speaking to Samir about this progression and future plans he told me;

''Our next Wizard Union band project which we'll start recording next spring is going to be the start of a living LP. We're going to have an album on Bandcamp that keeps getting updated with new songs over time, rather than just releasing a bunch of EPs. When we think the LP is full, we'll release the physical copy and then start the next LP the same way. So the evolution of the songs that you mentioned on Phantom Fury, might be even more apparent on the LPs. We have 3 songs ready to record, and maybe 3-4 written that I think are good enough to start practising, so who knows how different those songs will be compared to our previous works. They're fucking heavy though.''

As far as I'm concerned this a Collective to keep an eye on. They have plenty to offer in terms of the Stoner Sludge sound but also touch on different styles which could open them up to a larger fan base. But to just regard the Wizard Union element would be wrong, there's other things to look forward to from these musicians.

Samir; ''As far as projects we have lined up, Larry and I have a Sludge Punk Noise Rock thing called Bladder that we're planning to record in the spring. That project pretty much came out of he and I playing together as Wizard Union as a duo, because our Bass Player Aaron had to drop out at the last minute, and we didn't wanna cancel'' Samir took over Bass duties for this show as they felt it might add to the Doom effect, but they were not happy with the outcome. ''We didn't necessarily like Wizard Union songs played with just a bass and drums, but Larry was like, hey how about we keep this going as a godheadsilo type thing, and that's pretty much how the collective idea was born. Keep it all under one umbrella.''

Check these guys out on Bandcamp and give them a follow on Facebook and Twitter. If they're you're thing the EP is only $3, which is cheaper than a pint of Fosters Kangaroo Piss. Have a taste below! (of the band not Kangaroo Piss).

Introducing - Into Orbit

After listening to the talents of Cloud, I've had a thirst for more atmospheric, heavy instrumental music.

Some stuff I've found sounded worse than that time you heard your folks shagging. Some of it has been pretty good but not quite exploring the heights I'd hoped for.

Into Orbit contacted me saying I could download their stuff, for free, from Bandcamp, so I thought I'd give it a listen. What do I have to lose other than time? (My precious, precious time)

What I can undoubtedly say is they hit the spot for me with their brand of epic, atmospheric sound scapes. Bringing together ambience and heavyness as though they should have always been married. This music takes you places.

Into Orbit are but two men, Paul Stewart on guitar and Ian Moir on drums. Their hometown is Wellington in New Zealand. Moir said "We've played in a few different bands together over the past 10 years, mostly metal stuff. This band came about when we decided to have a casual jam with just the two of us about three years ago. Paul had just bought himself a loop pedal, he was playing around with that and I was jamming along on the drums. It all felt pretty organic and songs just started kinda flowing out of the jams. We realised that, with Paul's loop pedal and plethora of other effects we could create a full band sound with just the two of us. We decided to stick to that because we were finding the creative process so smooth with the two of us and didn't want to jeopardise it by adding someone else"

Bringing together ambience and heavyness as though they should always have been married. This music takes you places

Style

Their music it is at times light, serene, full of resonance, warm and comforting, and in the same track it can become heavy, aggresive, dark and at time mechanical, deranged.

Within the compositions, there are well thought out layers of sound that keep you alert and involved in the music. Stewart uses effects to create broad soundscapes and Moir's drum work is at times inspired and always well performed. Their ability to compose thoughtful and interesting music completes the package.

They are not members of a particular scene in New Zealand, but this suits them. Drummer, Moir told me "New Zealand is a small place. There are some great bands, and there are scenes, but I'm not sure where we fit into it, and to be honest we don't want to be part of a scene, we just want to play with great and interesting, different bands. Some of our favorite local bands to play with over the past year have been really stylistically diverse, experimental, alt-rock, post-rock, punk, doom, funk, country-drone, extreme metal. Our fans seem to be really diverse, they don't come from one place musically".

And you can see why they are appreciated by a wide ranging audience. They identify themselves as experimental rock, which is quite fitting but theres a lot of rock ground covered, with metal, prog, ambient and drone all thrown in. So often you read bands associating themselves with an abundance of genres and when you listen you're scratching your head digging around for the metal element they said they had. For Into Orbit, the multitude of references is completely relevant.

"New Zealand is a small place...and there are scenes, but I'm not sure where we fit into it, and to be honest we don't want to be part of a scene, we just want to play with great and interesting, different bands".

Soundtrack

There was a great soundtrack released in 1984, written by Mark Knopfler, for a film called Cal. It was ever present in my household growing up thanks to the eclectic taste of my step father. Listening to Into Orbit envokes happy memories of listening to Cal in my youth. Whilst stylistically completely different, Into Orbit's compositions hold the same ability to paint a picture and portray an atmosphere through sound.  Their music, especially the excellent album, Caverns, is like a soundtrack to an epic, unwritten film.

If you let it, it can make the imagination run wild. When listening I envisage floating over stunning rural scenes, and then epic battles full of passion and bloodlust. (can someone recommend a psychiatrist?)

There's songs that inspire thoughts of adventures and danger, one being the excellent Gilgamesh their newest track described bt the band as an "enigma" spawned from a jamming session.

When listening I envisage floating over stunning rural scenes, and then epic battles full of passion and bloodlust.

They take you on a journey while listening, but non of this is by design. Moir says, "The music tends to happen in the moment, before any thematic ideas come into it, I guess at that point it's about following an undefined 'feeling' of where the song is going. The themes come into it when a song is finished and we take a step back from it and think about song titles and artwork to fit the vibe, which explore those kinds of themes".

Live

I couldn't begin to envisage how Into Orbit came across live before learning about Stewart's loop pedal, Moir explains; " Paul's loop pedal is basically our 'third member'. Paul lays down the layers of guitar loops live on stage, and I do my best to stay in time with it! You might notice on our releases, that multiple guitar parts don't (come) in at once, but one layer at a time. I guess it's a limitation in being a loop pedal duo, but it's also helped define our style".

Whilst Moir describes the limitations of the loop pedal, as a listener you may feel it adds to the build up of the compositions, creating a progressive feel. The fact it is recorded in this manner must also add an authenticity to live performances that are played and built up in the same way.

New Albun

Into Orbit are working on a new album, hopefully to be released this year. When I asked about it's progress I was told, "6 months ago I would have said it was about 6 months away from completion, but we're constantly changing our minds about parts, and about which songs to include on the album. . . Our writing/arranging process involves a lot of experimentation, sometimes it takes a while to hit on something we're 100% happy with, and it's pretty hard to predict when we'll get to that point."

It's refreshing to know that putting out the right material, that which best reflects the band's development and direction is paramount over purely getting something out.

Whilst we eagerly await this release why don't you head to Bandcamp and download their back catalogue. Sit in a dark room, put on your headphones and enjoy a bit of impressive creativity and above all, amazing music.

Follow them: Facebook/Twitter