Mushroom's Patience - Water

Second communique this week from the Vrystaete camp with a first time double LP pressing of Mushroom's Patience's Water, the final part in their Roma-Wien trilogy. In operation since the early 80s and with a dense catalogue of recordings stretching way into the hundreds, Mushroom's Patience are one of those distinctly European acts that seem to have not just endured but flourished within a self-sustaining underground, adapting, experimenting, collaborating and consistently reimagining their sound apart from any wider musical purview (i'll spare us all any mushroom growing in the dark analogy). Water arrived relatively late in their history (it seems the band eventually became inactive around 2015), and finds them at a compelling apex, a post-industrial, avant garde re-altering of rock dynamics that plays something like moon-phase Coil re-imagined for Recommended Records. The connecting threads between prog (the band name is a giveaway) and post-industrial appears particularly stark here, the song structures adventurous and open-ended, uniting jazz improvisation with electronic experimentalism, while the vocals of band leader Raffaele Cerroni, whether in English or otherwise, are charged with a dark poeticism, gesturing towards the hidden reverse, lured into the shadows. There's much beauty to be found in here, too, particularly on the closing side of disc two, a droning array of mournful synths and chiming guitars that are as expressive as anything Cerroni sings. Despite their prolific nature, Mushroom's Patience still seem to be a little overlooked and underappreciated, but it's instructive to consider how we'd feel about Water were it the work of a new band. The answer is somewhat unequivocal - this is uniquely compelling stuff deserving of more eyes and ears. Good work by Vrystaete for bringing it back into view.