Giorgio Giri and Marco Lentano aka Mushrooms Project return with their 3rd album. It’s been almost a decade since their last. In conjunction with Archeo Recordings, the Parma-based pair are using the event to launch their own label, Zahfari Recordings. The album’s title, Semà (Danza Dell’Estasi), refers to a Sufi ceremony of remembrance, which involves mediation through poetry, music and dance. The 10 tracks reflect this, as both individually and collectively they have the feel of a spiritual ritual. 

Whereas before the duo’s sound was dominated by overdubs of treated guitar, psychedelic in nature and nodding toward the magic of their moniker, here the 6-string gymnastics are cut down to a minimum. Only really making their presence felt on the opening epic, Kunguru 13 (Corvo 13). The fretwork’s fluid chiming countering an electric storm of pulses and drones. The atmosphere, slightly uneasy, as if sensory perception is slowly starting to shift. The track serving as point of entry on a sonic journey up river into uncharted jungle searching for Joseph Conrad’s Kurtz and humanity’s dark heart.

The majority of tracks are close to, or over, 10 minutes in length. Unhurriedly evolving into downtempo, rhythmic rumblings of synth-assisted, shaking, rattling, cowbell ringing percussive drum circle dynamics and echoed chants. Cosmic, tribal chug-athons, where acidic arpeggios mimic aboriginal didgeridoos amongst panpipes and traditional-sounding tongued flutes. Heavy bass-lines grounding the grooves. Spaced out SFX mixing with shamanic shouts, and scrambled voices intercepted from short wave transmissions. By the time you’re halfway in, deep within Humus Dub’s vocal vapour trails, you’re lost in tropical territory, bathed, baked in birdsong and wildlife mating calls. Simian shrieks and shimmering temple gongs. Far from your physical surroundings. The aim of purification, perhaps at the long-player’s core.

Mushrooms Project’s Semà (Danza Dell’Estasi) is out now on Zahfari Recordings.