Total Stoner: SlowRepeat’s Abra Cannabra

Yeah. So, I heard the lead single, U N Eye, from SlowRepeat’s Abra Cannabra. It was pretty darn good, enough give the whole thing a listen. Decent groove, interesting guitar tone, a solid Stoner song to kick off the New Year.

The thing is, after listening to the whole album, it’s not the same song to me.

SlowRepeat’s Abra Cannabra

Israel. Herby Records. January 4, 2024

The opener, The Astronomer’s Sign, starts out a little rough. Since I’m writing about a Stoner band, I might as well use stoner analogies. Keep in mind, I haven’t smoked weed since 1992, and I’m not endorsing the activity. But, ya know, read the room and all that…

Back in 1983, when I was at Bowling Green State University, the Reagan administration decided to spray paraquat on cannabis farms. Here’s an article on it: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/08/25/use-of-paraquat-to-kill-marijuana-stirs-protests/33fc0618-ecb8-4b2c-be2a-9bf71f659553/

The point is, we were fucking dry. As in, no weed available, anywhere, for weeks at a time. Until the seedless sensimilla started coming in from Humboldt County, and we got a taste of Indica for the first time. But before that happened, we were all stuck with what was around, if we actually found it.

More often than not, we found “bunk,” stuff with more seeds and stems than bud. Nasty, harsh hit. But…every now and then, what looked and tasted like bunk turned out to be creeper. Stuff that unexpectedly took a turn after a few minutes. One dude, Dave, a wrestler from Lima, OH could always tell when that happened. He’d sit back with a big smile, squint his eyes and whisper, “creeper, man.”

I don’t usually dwell on 80s stoner nostalgia, but Anna Cannabra has the same vibe. Astronomer’s Sign seemed to have little going for it on first listen. It came across as another Stoner Band dipping their toes into garage psyche, lo-fi noise. Second up was Essence, another obligatory ode to weed.

But on the third song, Tomi Wizard, that’s when the whole thing “creeped” up on me. It starts out with a nice, slow and creepy intro on clean guitar. But then the bass comes in, and I realize that bassist Shai Leder is sporting a fretless. As I announced in this past a few days ago, I’m starting to work for Bass Gear Magazine.

https://cleanandsoberstoner.com/2024/01/16/a-clean-and-sober-stoner-update/  

In short, once I hear a bass player do something interesting, I tend to start digging in a little deeper. OK, I lied. That’s where my bias comes in, and I dig a lot deeper. I went back to the beginning of the album, and I really started paying attention to not only the base, but the drums as well.

That’s when I discovered the true magic of SlowRepeaT. In every way, this is guitarist/singer Ben Salomon’s band. SlowRepeaT started out as a solo project, and it’s obviously his vision on this album. But he did something a few visionaries seem to do: he didn’t bring in slugs to be his backing band. He brought in serious players who the to the next level. In this way, he reminds me a little bit of Lori S. and Acid King.

Ben gives drummer Yair Tavior. and Shai Leder room to breathe, to create, to carve out their own distinctive niche within the overall song. Yair Tavior brings an approach similar to what Chris Hakius brought to Om. He approaches drums like a lead instrument, and where Abra Cannabra might be lacking in incendiary guitar work and over the top leads, Tavior makes up for it with his wildly inventive percussion work.

The bass playing takes a similar attack, although I’m hard pressed to come up with someone who Leder sounds like. Oh yeah, he reminds me just a bit of Johan De Farfalla from early Opeth. Not in overall technique, because good Gawd!, very few human beings can approach De Farfalla’s jazz-on-acid approach to anything. But he does bring a similar, arpeggiated approach. This is not a bass player who focuses on root/fifth bass lines in support of the guitar. The dude is playing the chords and bending them to his will bad intent. It’s wildly effective.

This tells me a lot about Ben. He’s not afraid to let the other instrument shine, while he focuses on the songcraft and the delivery. And that delivery is something else. Now, the recording is decidedly lo-fi, but it’s effectively done. The over-compression of the guitars works in this context.

By the time I was done with this album, I was relieved that I didn’t have to take a piss test the next day. The Haze is strong with this one, and operating heavy machinery or even taking out the garbage would be a challenging endeavor after listening to this.

That’s all I can ask of a highly concentrated strain of Stoner/Doom like this.