HEADROOM - s/t CD

CD only.

Highly recommended.

This CD collects four now out-of-print singles and EPs from the group: Headroom CS (C/Site Recordings), New Heaven 12" (ever/never), Equinox 20 7" (I Dischi Del Barone) and Rubber Match 7" (Petty Bunco), charting the development of the group from early experiments with noise wrangling through to longer drifting and heady full band explorations.

FFO: Bardo Pond, Blank Realm, Tokyo Flashback

In just a few short years, KRYSSYI BATTALENE, the mastermind behind HEADROOM, has moved mountains and crossed oceans with her epic guitar-playing. In addition to MOUNTAIN MOVERS, her Headroom project enables Kryssi to further explore the outer reaches of her hypnotic state. Following Head In The Clouds, the triumphant debut on Trouble In Mind, Headroom’s 12”EP on Ever/Never Records is just the front-lobe massage you didn’t even know you were craving. While recalling the towering grace of Bardo Pond, Headroom carve out their own space within the fertile crescent of modern American psychedelic rock.

“New Heaven” opens the proceedings, and you’d be forgiven for imagining the title an oblique reference to Headroom’s HQ—New Haven, Conn. As guitars arc towards the sky, Battalene’s voice gets the chopped-and-screwed treatment, as if to remind you that we are always on the precipice of something new, something unpredictable. “City Lights” is an earthbound meditationwith lovely, reverb-soaked vocals and on-the-verge-of-feedback guitars that echo Les Rallizes Denudes, a key influence on Battalene and her cohorts (which include notable artists like Stefan Christensen). But they manage to maintain their cool, extending the ache until it turns into the sublime. Side Two of New Heaven is devoted to “Skyliner,” a patiently building exercise in sustained psych mode as guitars, synths and voice ride the rhythm section to the outer limits.