Turiiya - Waiting

Here's a very special LP that quickly crept into being one of my favorite new spins of 2010... My friend Callum mentioned this Kiwi folk-psych long-player in an e-mail exchange a few months ago as being a true delight, and so I immediately tracked down a copy to check it out. I was quickly sucked into their lush cosmos of nocturnal vocalizations, looming cello runs, and odd drawn out song structures. The record in a sense seems born out of some loose stage of new age phenomenon, hailing from the late date of 1986, and the band being annointed with a Hindu word meaning, "pure conciousness," in turn much of the lyrical flavor comes through on this level: gorgeous female vocals intoning the depths of the forest, the Aboriginal "Dreaming," vantages onto island travel and living a small life in the bounds of Anglo Oceania - calling to mind at times Campion's wonderful film, Sweetie, as well a host of other celestial and earthly energy fields. Musically the group is indeed first and foremost a kind of loose aggregate of spirituality born to sound. Sonically I can't help but flash on things like Comus or the Christ Tree... yet Turiiya are of their own place and time, and it would be reductive to just tag them with the much overused folk-psych tag and be done with it. They seem formed within some kind of a far flung indie rock scene, but simultaneously orbiting well beyond the identity politics and catch-phrase jingo-ism that usually inform those kinds of records. I know New Zealand had its share of shambolic forthright female outfits in this time period, yet Turiiya still seems to be beckoning from a mistier clime... In any case, being hard to pin is one of my favorite aspects in sound, so I'll let my hypotheses rest here. The record is a mash of organic, strange, illuminated ideas and it really should just be enjoyed. I can find virtually no references to the LP online, so any further info is much appreciated. Talk soon - J

The Mysterious Women of Turiiya