Chrome Chasm

Chrome Chasm have come together over the last couple of years to offer a very different side of Texas psychedelia. Formed from the fusion of three RSTB faves, the band brings together Houston regulars Mlee Marie (Hearts of Animals) and Will Adams (Lower Dens), both of whom were working on the excellent Alien Eyelid record from earlier in the year. The pair connects with a psych luminary in the form of Tom Carter (Charalambides) who brings his distinctive guitar tones and patient pacing to the record. The noise and chafe of the ‘bides is turned down and the country corners only enter in shades this time around, though both crouch in the corners of the record. Chrome Chasm’s core is lodged somewhere between the spiritual and the cosmic, slipping on tones and traditions from Krautrock to Spiritual Jazz while working their alchemy to craft something new from these familiar forms.

The record was largely inspired by Mlee’s otherworldly sax work, and her instrumentation becomes the centerpiece of Interpreter. A pulse in the darkness, her tones thread through the mists and mire that stretch out from Adams and Carter. Echoes of Cluster, Budd, and Eno manifest as a darker dream of Satchdananda, reverberated through layers of time and rubbed away by memory’s imperfect grasp. The record holds onto the edges of desert psych, gliding past the ambient country heads towards something a bit more spectral. At the intersection of jazz, ambient, experimental, and kosmiche, Chrome Chasm rubs some grit into the gauzy ambience of all four and succeeds in crafting a dented beacon that beams through the darkness of night, space, and the folded corners of dream.

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