Cosmic Heart Jacotte Chollet

Church of the Cosmic Skull are a seven piece from Nottingham. The band describe themselves as an actual church, a religious movement who "seek to free mankind from their material possessions and unify all living beings into a singular cosmic whole…". You'd be forgiven for thinking this all sounds gimmicky and not exactly original; we've had bands in robes and such before, trying to reel us in with their cult-ish vibes and the promise of faux spiritual reveries, possibly followed by orgies and spiked punch. Plenty of bands have gotten mileage out of the 60’s and 70’s countercultures experiments and investigations into the great and spooky invisible, some continue faithfully in the same vein like Jess and the Ancient Ones and some revel in its glamour and darkness like Uncle Acid on their Mind Control set…

Once upon a time, on January 11th 2019 (pre-plague), a rag-tag group of Scottish musical ne’er-do-wells flew to a fancy-ass studio in Sweden on an impossible mission to record, in two whole days, an album of the only eleven songs they could actually play. Were it not for a series of mishaps, bad calls, vodka, general tomfoolery (those f****** gloves!) and one near-death experience, they might just about have managed it too.

Michael Cosmic s Peace In The World & Phill Musra Group's Creator Spaces, featuring unreleased music by The Phill Musra Group and Michael Cosmic. Free improvisation, first touched on by messengers like John Coltrane, Sun Ra and Albert Ayler, gives us an exuberant maelstrom that rejoices in life while it shoves back at complex, unforgiving social-political environments. The 70's Boston underground brought twin brothers Phill Musra and Michael Cosmic together with Turkish-born drummer Hüseyin Ertunç; as a trio, and with other Boston jazzers (John Jamyll Jones of Worlds Experience Orchestra, the 2nd Now-Again Reserve Edition entry), the twins each privately issued an album. Potent mixes of spirituality, expressionist fire and electrified newness. Mastered from the original tapes.

Described as "Occult Pop" for fans of ELO, Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac and Queen, the 9 track record from the Nottingham based "spiritual organisation" sees an expansion on the prog/psych/retro stylings and hook-heavy songwriting of the critically acclaimed debut "Is Satan Real?" (2016). Piano and vintage synths have been introduced alongside the Hammond organ, electric cello and six-part vocal harmonies, resulting in a sound that truly "puts the ABBA in Sabbath".