ALBUM REVIEW: Live At Dunajam – Ecstatic Vision
With crazy, heavy psych primal freak outs and chaotic energy, Philadelphia’s ECSTATIC VISION are an explosively colourful and intensely passionate band. Creating the music “that they wanted to hear”, the band have been influenced by the greats of the psychedelic scene, namely HAWKWIND, APHRODITE’S CHILD, CAN and AMON DÜÜL II. With this brain-melting concoction of tripped out, primal and experimental music behind them, it is safe to say that ECSTATIC VISION confidently and frequently push modern heavy psych into new strange and surreal realms. This auditory hallucination was unleashed live in 2022 at the legendarily private festival of Dunajam, which has been held annually on the island of Sardinia since 2006.
What is special about this album as it gives us a small window into the Dunajam world. In the 2022 edition ECSTATIC VISION starred alongside the likes of ELDER, MAIDAVALE, TEMPLE FANG and DUEL. The audiences are usually around 150 people, so it is considered more of a gathering of friends rather than an outright festival. With the small audiences, the secrecy around which parts of the island it is held in and the intimate nature of the performances despite it being open air, Dunajam provides an incredible backdrop for a live album.
Playing a selection of songs from their 2022 album Elusive Mojo (which released in May before the band played Dunajam in June) alongside the emphatic cuts from 2017’s Raw Rock Fury and a few others, ECSTATIC VISION go hell for leather and unleash a whirlwind of heavy psych madness. What makes the band stand out significantly from their contemporaries is their liberal and insanely enjoyable use of Kevin Nickles’ saxophone. Alongside the soaring lead guitar acrobatics of Doug Sabolik, it makes it an incredible experience to hear these two instruments melodically weave in and out of one another over the tight drum rhythms supplied by Ricky Culp and Michael Field Connor’s driving basslines.
With all those elements in mind and everything considered, Live At Dunajam is an incredible live album. The band’s chemistry and musical wizardry enables them to go on what feels like massive improv jams that leave your jaw on the floor. From start to finish ECSTATIC VISION are fast, unhinged and primal, and everything is thrown at you with a relentless pace and intensity. Sabolik also leaves speaking between songs to the minimum, preferring to let the music do the talking, and it most certainly does. You can’t help but feel a little bit jealous of the small crowd that got to witness this stellar performance on the sunny island of Sardinia. This blistering 38-minute performance has all the hallmarks of a ‘you should have been there’ moment.
Live At Dunajam also has a mesmerically wonderful, vintage feel to it. On first impressions you could be forgiven for thinking that this was recorded in the 1970s and not in 2022. Every guitar and bass note is drenched in a luscious, warm fuzz that feels amazing as it barrels down your ear canals. The drums have that special 1970s sounding production that you’d find on LED ZEPPELIN, BLACK SABBATH and DEEP PURPLE albums, while the saxophone hits a perfect sweet spot in between all the craziness.
The album opens up with You Got It (Or You Don’t) and before it kicks into life, it would be advised that you buckle up as it doesn’t slow down from here. With Sabolik’s gritty vocals barking lyrics over the heavy psych wizardry, it’s hard not to feel hyped up and wanting to get your body moving wherever you might be listening to this album. Followed by Time’s Up, which is one of the stand out songs on the band’s most recent album, ECSTATIC VISION really begin to get into the swing of things and ramp up the energy. The Electric Step and Deathwish 1970 continue this electrifying energy surge and the frenzied feel good atmosphere becomes increasingly tangible, reinforcing the aforementioned jealousy. After the quick burst of a track TV Eye, the performance is closed out by Come Together. Here you just have to step back and admire what you’ve just heard; ECSTATIC VISION’s relentless energy needs to be bottled up and sold to the rest of us.
Live At Dunajam has that special live album feel, one that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and the kind of amazing record that comes to you at exactly the right time. ECSTATIC VISION have been captured in their full, crazy and colourful flow as everything seems to fall into place perfectly. It is safe to say that Live At Dunajam will leave a mark on you, then make you want to impulsively buy a flight to Sardinia.
Rating: 9/10
Live At Dunajam is set for release on March 17th via Heavy Psych Sounds.
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