Land Back by The Myrrors

Following a period of relative quiet, legendary Sonoran drone rock ensemble The Myrrors returns with their latest aural broadside. Founding members N.R. Safi (Naujawanan Baidar) and Grant Beyschau (Tambourinen, Pirámides) reunited with viola player Miguel Urbina in their desert hometown in late 2021 for a marathon week of improvisation and recording, yielding the material for what should have been the immediate follow-up to their panoramic 2018 album Borderlands. Four years of global tumult later, we can finally hear the results - and tragically the material seems even more relevant now than ever before.

Charging out of the gates with the aptly named "Breakthrough" and careening sharply into the anti-colonial cry of "Land Back," it is clear that The Myrrors have once again whittled new forms into the raw material of their now-recognizable sound. The angry sparks only hinted at occasionally on previous albums has now emerged like wildfire, highlighting the revolutionary politics that have always undergirded the band's art.

None of this is to say that the familiar influences of minimalism, spiritual jazz, and raga that underscored The Myrrors' previous work has been done away with. In fact, Land Back sees the group honing even more deeply into these territories, especially through a renewed emphasis on Beyschau's saxophone - kaleidoscopically transformed here through vintage analogue tape delays using Terry Riley's time lag accumulator technique into a whirling tapestry of unpredictable sonic colors in which his single instrument can often ring out like a full ensemble in itself. In "Bakú a Bandung" all these elements come together in a powerful, trance-like homage to the undying spirit of anti-imperialist resistance in the global peripheries. The pulsating throb of the bass and the wild swirl of instruments perhaps call to mind lines from the Afghan poet Rumi when he wrote in the Masnavi,

𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯.
𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧.
𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.
𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘥.
𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦.

But of course, as The Myrrors are quick to remind us in the title track,

𝘕𝘰 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘭 𝘸𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦.

Land Back arrives August 31st, 2025 on both black and olive-in-clear vinyl as well as limited edition runs on CD (with handmade sleeves by Same Giles) and cassette. This album is a co-release by Radio Khiyaban (EU), A.U.M. (North America), and Cardinal Fuzz (UK).

sonoran trance music

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