Crystalized Movements This WIdeness Comes 1990

Connecticut's Wayne Rogers is self-made psychedelic genius who has been working on parallel tracks to fullfil his transcendental musical mission. The records made under the moniker Crystalized Movements are simply pretexts for shimmering guitar shows. Rogers is a little Hendrix of the American small-town milieu. He can tap into the guitar's wildest effects to paint his simple songs all sorts of colors. Mind Disaster (Twisted Village, 1983) is basically a set of improvised lysergic jams with drummer Ed Boyden. Rogers found his true voice with Magic Hour. The band is half Crystalized Movements and half Galaxie 500. Rogers and Biggar are joined by the deluxe rhythm section of Naomi Yang and Damon Krukowski. The single Heads Down (Twisted Village, 1994) hinted at a personal revision of slo-core cliches, but the following single After Tomorrow (Che, 1994), a ten-minute suite reminiscent of Pink Floyd and Hawkwind, upped the ante. The intensity of the unreleased Damaged Lights (Twisted Village, 1991) is such that one would agree with the song I Am The Only Guitarist In The World And I'm Bleeding. While Rogers doesn't know the meaning of the world "focus", his sincerity and dexterity accomplish something that goes beyond Bevin Frond's holeographic reenactments. Rogers put a real band together to record Dog Tree Satellite Seers (Twisted Village, 1987), and the result is a mixed bag: on one hand the partners force Rogers to think, not just hallucinate, but on the other one the Crystalized Movements tend to sound too often as yet another New York revival combo. Magic Hour's guitarists Wayne Rogers and Kate "Village" Biggars started a psychedelic hard-rock project called Major Stars (Tom Leonard on bass, Dave Lynch on drums), that released The Rock Revival (Twisted Village, 1997), containing just four extended jams reminiscent of Blue Cheer and Jimi Hendrix, and Space/Time (Twisted Village, 1999), containing the 14-minute Apples To Grapes. Distant Effects (Squealer, 2002) offers a mature mixture of stoner-rock (Higher Meaning, Are We) and acid-rock freakouts (Hardly Mention). Like the previous albums, 4 (Twisted Village, 2005) contains a couple of melodic ditties and two instrumental space jams, Phantom #1 and Song For Turner. Better production and tighter playing account for an overall grander listening experience. While not original by any stretch of the imagination, Rogers' excursions into mind expansion are getting more effective and less redundant, almost surgical. Syntoptikon (2006), featuring a third guitarist next to the two founding guitarists, was less impressive. The Major Stars hired rowdy vocalist Sandra Barrett for Mirror Messenger (2008), that contains the lengthy My People and especially Mirror Messenger, in which the three-guitar workouts have time to solidify. The shorter songs are rather trivial though, a problem that got worse on Return To Form (2010).