Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music

AMG Review of Dreamweapon: An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music

Jason Ankeny
All Music Guide

Taking off from the ideals which form the core of La Monte Young's concept of "dream music," the heart of Dreamweapon is "An Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music," a transfixing 40-plus-minute document of a landmark Spacemen 3 performance recorded at Waterman's Art Centre in Hammersmith on August 19, 1988. Perhaps the purest expression of the Spacemen aesthetic, the piece is an unbroken tapestry of hypnotic drones, throbbing tones, and repetitive phrases, dappled here and there by evaporating fragments of the melodies which later resurfaced on Playing With Fire. The cumulative effect is one of utter disorientation -- all notions of time and space quickly give way to complete conscious immersion in the music's narcotic tug. A pair of epic rarities, Sonic Boom's feedback sculpture "Ecstasy in Slow Motion" and "Spacemen Jam," round out the package.