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Psychonaut is a side project of Valefor, acoustic and rhythmic and ritualistic as opposed to the gloom and doom of Valefor. This first release is quite an intoxicating magical atmosphere.
This is the first release of the Valefor side-project.
Tribal and ritual psychoacoustics sounds for your haunted dreams that will please all lovers of the Nekrophile years (Zero Kama/Secret Eye of Laylah...).
The music was inspired by the Austin Osman Spare book The Witches' Sabbath, Rosaleen Norton's paintings, and Aleister Crowley's Hymn to Pan.
Crystal box with clear tray, 12 pages deluxe full color booklet with texts and paintings by AOS, Rosaleen Norton, and Aleister Crowley, and 4 pages on transparent printed paper.
Strange Fortune listener reviews are a free space to share your impressions of the music.
Michael J. Salo says on 8 May 2005
I admit I'm not the world's biggest fan of Psychonaut or Valefor, I've always considered these second or third rate projects overall, yet somehow they've done a couple particular albums that have made a big impression on me.
One of them was Valefor's Death Magick on Cold Meat Industry (now out of print unfortunately), an outstanding dark ambient/evil drone recording made with help from Brighter Death Now.
The other one that works for me is this first Psychonaut release from 1999. The nearest comparison to this music that comes to mind is the Master Musicians of Jajouka, except this would be a creative contemporary take on the style.
It's mainly primitive percussion, pan flute, subtle vocals and some atmospheric effects. It has a highly organic, high-energy feeling, it's repetitive but ever-changing by slight degrees, basically excellent music to bring on a trance state of some sort.
I don't think there's any major musical talent behind this, they just seem to hit on a good groove. It's not far from a hippie drum circle.
Michael Ford refrains from invoking words himself for most of the album, instead wisely leaving the center of attention to the music, and to pleasant low-in-the-mix female vocals by Shanna LeJeunne.
If you're into anything like Dead Can Dance or perhaps the new weird experimental hippie folk such as Sunburned Hand of the Man, check out this album. As for the rest of the discography of this artist, well, don't proceed with high expectations.
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dying to have it?
try searching for Psychonaut at gemm
