Psychedelic? Experimental? Avant garde? All of the above? Yes, yes and also yes. Prepare for sensory overload when feasting your eyeballs and earholes on the latest video missive from Philly prog weirdos Sarattma, “Socotra.” The nearly nine-minute track is an epic sprawl of all manner of guitar meanderings—from twiddly-widdly to chunky-chunky—and off-kilter time signatures. The wildly talented duo of Sara Neidorf (drums) and Matt Hollenberg (guitars/bass VI/bass) follow their musical muse down all sorts of head-expanding paths all while accompanied by equally disorienting visuals. I feel like maybe I should also include one of those “this may be problematic for people who have issues with strobes” warning, just in case.
“Socotra” is taken from Sarattma’s latest full-length, Escape Velocity, which is currently available on limited edition black vinyl (250 copies) via Nefarious Industries. You can grab one here. The video’s performance footage was shot in Berlin (by Marco Bianciardi, who shot Neidorf) and NYC (by Naeemah Maddox, who shot Hollenberg). David Brenner/Gridfailure shot the outdoor footage and edited and directed the video.
Sara Neidorf had this to say about the track and video:
“‘Socotra’ was the one song on the album that came about completely spontaneously in the recording studio. Not a single lick of it was written beforehand. The rhythm was my impulse, over which Matt laid continually expanding melodic motifs during an extended jam. We named the song after the island which has been referred to as the most alien place on earth, with its dragon’s blood trees and baobabs—the trees we featured on our album art. In many ways the song heralds that there are always alien surprises nearer than we think, more to unearth, tensions to dig something harmonious out of.”
Matt Hollenberg’s take:
“‘Socotra’ was the most spontaneously performed song on the album and is one of my favorites. The fact that there was no agenda stylistically from the conception of the song really opened the music up. Once the rhythm took hold, the piece sort of had its own life with regards to the phrase variations, which was a wild ride. Moments like this with music, it’s hard to tell if the music is playing you or vice versa. The tonal landscape that resulted from this improvisation reminded me of Malian music, which informed some of the dub elements that would emerge in the bass overdub session that happened much later. We did very few overdubs other than the bass to keep the integrity of the interaction of the performance.”
