Weather Reports

Space Weather (Space Weather Recordings, BwbW 01) - Space Weather

"With Space Weather’s music you can either choose to descend into the gentle flicker patterns of Lakia’s cabin or float above the nightscapes of Scotland’s glittering and smoky towns. Alistair Crosbie, Brian Lavelle and Andrew Paine, a trio of Glasgow/Edinburgh experimentalists, have created a disc of synth/bass/guitar works that summon up (the best parts of) mid 70s Eno back with an affecting centre. The most striking element here is undoubtedly the synth work, and even with Lavelle credited solely on synthesizer, it’d still be presumptuous to place that instruments melodies as his sole creation. “Space Weather” has the feel of a truly collaborative effort, neither of the players overwhelming the project’s music with ego or easily identifiable contributions. With much synth lead stuff that’s doing the rounds nowadays, it’s possible to become inured to predictable passages of sound; this isn’t an issue here. The title track brings to fulfilment a sea-shanty ambience, synths shifting from true string instruments and back again – even the track’s drum machine can’t settle the virtual roll of the waves/sounds. There’s more observable guitar drone work on “Ardrahan Battalions”, but it owes more to the blissful end of progressive than pretension. They also make way for motornik fuzzed-out-pop on “They Turned Left”, Andrew Paine doing a gentle bass line that positions the piece and its momentum. “Another Green World” might well be a comparatively distant relative, but there’s little anyone/thing can do to pull the stars from this album’s trails."
(Scott McKeating, Foxy Digitalis, 17 September 2009)

"Space Weather is a different kind of collaboration entirely, the debut from an improvising trio with [Alistair] Crosbie playing guitar alongside Brian Lavelle's synthesizer and Andrew Paine's bass, making weightless space-Prog reminiscent of Ash Ra Tempel's more dreamy excursions, such as 'Traummaschine'."
(Daniel Spicer, The Wire, Issue 308, October 2009)

"Debut album from a new psychedelic Scottish trio featuring Andrew Paine (of Sonic Oyster Records and frequent Richard Youngs collaborator), Alistair Crosbie and Brian Lavelle (another one-time Youngs collaborator). This project has more of a ‘group’ atmosphere than anything the three have done before, with Crosbie on electric guitar, Lavelle on synth and Paine on electric bass. The feel is of hazy, synthesized space rock, with aspects drawn from early-Coil colliding with the soft, padding style of Neu circa ’75 and devotional Popol Vuh."
(Volcanic Tongue).