Santa Cruz Space-Rock Favorites Play Rare Local Show
By Dave Pehling
OAKLAND (CBS SF) -- Founded over a decade ago in the Santa Cruz Mountains, heavy psych band Mammatus has evolved dramatically from its riff-rocking, robe-sporting early days playing house parties and dive bars.
The group's founders -- Emmert brothers Nicky (guitar) and Aaron (drums) -- had played together in earlier projects before teaming with bassist Chris Freels and second guitarist Mike Donofrio. It was the influence of Freels that led Mammatus to start adding elements of Bay Area experimental punk and doom acts like Neurosis and Sleep to their already lumbering Sabbath/Zeppelin riffage.
Quickly embraced as part of an established Santa Cruz neo-psych scene that included such notables as Six Organs of Admittance, Comets on Fire and Residual Echoes, Mammatus recorded a demo that soon had the band signed to deals with San Francisco-based Holy Mountain Records and British imprint the Rocket Record Company.
The band's eponymous debut and follow-up effort The Coast Explodes both showed off a sludgy, bludgeoning approach to epic psychedelia that was augmented live by the band's wizard costumes, incense burning and an auxiliary staff-wielding member/mascot. The band toured the states with like-minded groups such as the aforementioned Residual Echoes and Japan's exploratory psych legends Acid Mothers Temple. But before long, Mammatus would go on an extended hiatus as band members settled into having jobs and families.
Finally returning as a trio with the departure of Donofrio, in 2013 Mammatus released Heady Mental through the Spiritual Pajamas label. The experimental album introduced new aspects to their sound, building songs around Emmert's extended finger-tapped arpeggios (think Eddie Van Halen guitar pyrotechnics meets minimalist composers Terry Riley and Phillip Glass) and adding Tangerine Dream style drone to the mix.
The band's new ambient/prog approach was hailed by critics and the band would be invited to perform at festivals like 2015's stoner/doom celebration Psycho California. Mammatus would issue its most recent effort, Sparkling Waters, that year. Recorded with noted guitarist/producer Phil Manley (Trans Am, Life Coach), the album continues the group's exploration of shimmering drones and extended progressive psych on its four 15-20 minute plus tracks, this time echoing Brian Eno's ambient work while still delivering plenty of head-nodding rock grooves.
While the group has largely been quiet of late (the trio hasn't played the Bay Area since appearing at the one-day psych festival Luminance SF at the Chapel in the spring of last year), Mammatus guitarist Emmert recent released Eminent Blade, a collection of languid solo guitar recordings that mirrors the ambient approach of the band's more recent work. Mammatus returns to headline this four-band bill of like-minded exploratory psych bands at Eli's Mile High Club in Oakland on Friday night.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=2406238331 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=2603305138]
East Bay prog/psych-metal outfit Ovvl -- which features the three Baechle brothers on guitars/vocals and drums -- recently released a new two-song cassette that showcases the group's heavy, complex songs indebted to the sounds of classic mid-1970s Rush. Relatively new trio Terry Gross features aforementioned guitar vet Manley, bass player Donny Newenhouse (Film School, Hot Fog, Buffalo Tooth) and drummer Phil Becker (Pins of Light, ex-Triclops! and Lower Forty-Eight). Contrary to what you might expect from a band named after the unflappably calm NPR interviewer, the threesome bashes out a kinetic, krautrock-influenced grooves. The band recently released it's debut recording, a two-song 10" vinyl EP out on Valley King Records. Meditative ambient psych trio Your Leader opens the show.
Mammatus
Friday, June 29, 8 p.m. $10
Eli's Mile High Club
