I don't even remember how I discovered Black Prism this past week, but I woke up ridiculously early this morning and while scrolling through Apple Music for something to listen to while finishing Joe Hill's novella "Loaded" - scary shit, that - I landed on this and realized I had not listened to it yet. Forty-Seven minutes later I was starting back at track one again.
Released independently on Christmas days, 2016, Black Prism's eponymous debut full-length album is a tight little chunk of Sabbath-influenced, down-tempo Stoner/Doom that, while that influence is evident from the opening track, quickly finds its own unique footing in the annals of the Iommi-verse that has blossomed in the past ten years or so.
You can buy the digital album on Black Prism's Bandcamp HERE, or, if you're really lucky, you can track down a moderately priced copy of their 2013 7" Satan's Country that was released on Easy Rider Records, before they changed their name to Riding Easy Records. Here's the video for that one, and it's a super cool throwback to those Lo-fi Satanic Panic images that line the shift of the 1960's Free Love movement into something much darker and more mysterious:
I can only dream of a future double-bill where Black Prism opens for Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats; the two would be perfect touring together.
Watch:
Well, my grandiose plans to plow through the entire season of Netflix's new live-action Cowboy Bebop adaptation were ambitious, to say the least. Got home from work later than anticipated and ended up taking a much-need nap before meeting some friends at Torrance, CA's Monkish brewery for a few beers, so by the time we returned home and fired up the tube, the 50-minute pilot was all I had in me before I fell asleep. But so far, I really like what I've seen.
Bebop is holy to me; I realized recently that it's probably my second favorite show of all time, right behind Twin Peaks. So I should be one of those people who get turned off by the liberties of adapting something like this into "real life." But no, I dug the pilot and can't wait to go back for me.
Here's the ending credit theme of the original show:
Oh yeah: Monkish? That was our first time there and hot damn, all those folks who have sung their praises as the best brewery in Southern California were not lying. I had the Dark and Mild Dark British Ale, and it is one for the books. I'll be heading back sooner rather than later. Maybe tonight, after a bunch of us spill out of a 7:00 PM showing of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which I've surprised myself by being extremely excited to see,
Playlist:
The Ocean - Fluxion
Underworld - 1992-2002
Deee-Lite - Dewdrops in the Garden
Deee-Lite - Groove is in the Heart (single)
Deee-Lite - Call Me Remix (single)
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Card:
Finishing (for now) one project opens a path to a new journey. Or maybe just a renewed one.
