Album review: Carlton Melton – Pass It On

This Monday just gone (12^th July 2010, just in case you’re trawling through old internet archives from some point in the future) would have been the 115^th birthday of charismatic architect, author, designer, inventor, and futurist Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller. That might well seem an odd thing to note at the beginning of a psyche-rock album review, but it actually provides me with a halfway-plausible (if very post hoc) excuse for being a month or so late getting round to reviewing Pass It On by Carlton Melton. You see, the band were formed with one very specific intention in mind: to perform and record some serious space rawk inside a recently reconstructed geodesic dome. The geodesic dome – very much an iconic feature of the optimistic futurism that powered the counterculture of the psychedelic sixties – was not invented by Bucky Fuller, but he popularised and developed the idea into an architectural form that looked sufficiently striking to match the bold claims made for its universal utility. We could build moonbases from these things, man… or cities beneath the sea…

… aaaaand you’re back in the room. We might safely say that geodesic domes are kind of synonymous with dreaming on an astronomical scale… so what better sort of music to record in a geodesic than a glorious and saturated drone-rock soundscape? No better sort, of course (well, duh), and that’s exactly what the Carlton Melton crew have done here. Opening up with a roaring rocket-plume cover version of Pink Floyd’s “When You’re In”, Pass It On is pure space-rock psyche, recalling the classic progenitors like Hawkwind and Steve Hillage as well as the more stretched-out lava-lamp moments of more recent brain-chemistry bon-vivants. If you’re familiar with the formless but fascinating sprawl of Monster Magnet’s early Tab… 25 EP, or the sprawling amphetamine-blues-rock trips of Earthless, you’ll know and love what’s waiting for you here: lush drones, spacious drum patterns and languid dynamics alternate with deep explorations of over-amplified monolithic riffs and skirling free-form solos buried in the maelstrom. To put it more simply, this is weed-smokin’ music at its very best, perfect for an afternoon with the windows open to the sunny sky and muted noises of the world outside, your ears full of lush sticky audio brain-treacle and your lungs full of something the government doesn’t approve of. Rather like this very afternoon, in fact. Hypothetically speaking. Ahem.

What, you want me to say more? Look, if you like psychedelic wig-out jams and wide-screen instrumental weirdness that layers on the effects with the proverbial builder’s trowel, then you’re gonna dig Carlton Melton‘s vibe in a big way. If you’re not too clued up about that sort of thing, perhaps this will help: one of the 500 copies of the album’s original vinyl only release at the end of 2009 ended up in the hands of J. Mascis, who allegedly proclaimed it his favourite album of the year. It doesn’t sound much like Dinosaur Jr. (except on the level of it being all about the lush analogue tones, perhaps), but there’s something of the same spirit in there, maybe. Take a hit, and Pass It On.