The Gak Omek - The Return Of The All-powerful Light Beings

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The Gak Omek - The Return Of The All-powerful Light Beings

Artist:	The Gak Omek
Title:	The Return Of The All-powerful Light Beings
Label:	self produced
Length(s):	minutes
Year(s) of release:	2004
Month of review:	[05/2005]

Line up

Robert Burger - guitar, guitar synth, digital drums
Dave Cashin - keyboards on 1, 7
Glenn Robitaille - drums on 1

Tracks

1)	Return Of The All-powerful Light Beings	15.06
2)	Forbidden Technology Of The Lost Clown Civilization	6.13
3)	Cydonia	10.44
4)	Apparitions Of Departed Human Personalities	10.45
5)	Radio Hypnotic Intracerebral Control	6.54
6)	Dance Of The Nine Unknown Men	9.35
7)	Departure Of The All-powerful Light Beings	2.57

Summary

This self-produced CDR is the second by Robert Burger who operates under the guise of the Gak Omek. The cd can be obtained from the Gak Omek website, CDBaby and a few other outlets.

The music

Return Of The All-powerful Light Beings begins with pounding drums (maybe because this is in fact the only tune with live drums). The percussion has a bit of a Chinese feel. The song impresses me as a collection of fragments strung together, and on the whole can be typified as what is typical individualistic American progrock. It all sounds very complex, very technical and even tehcnocratic. You may thus compare it to the music of the late Brian Hirsch (who also did not eschew science fiction). The guitar is rather psychedelic and gives a bit of a harsh edge. However, the music is not only harsh, it also has plenty of frolic elements. At four minutes we get a strange intermezzo, and the music becomes more EM and circus like. For some reason I am also reminded of Collage on their SI record, probably because of the guitar. There is really no moment of rest on this song, and every hole gets plugged up with sound. The themes on which this song are based are fortunately good enough, to stay clear of the threat of anonimity. Finally, we even get some organ that warms up the music a bit.

Forbidden Technology Of The Lost Clown Civilization continues the line set by the opener. The drumpatterns are quite weird on this one, while the melodies are more what I generally call 'tunes'. The bassline nice bumbles along and surprising is the Caribbean ingredient. This is something that seems typical for the music, because we hear it again in later song.

Cydonia has distortion and the scales running high. Again, the music is varied and complex, with plenty of things happening (i.e. programmed to occur) at the same time. The melodies are not so strong here, but the pace is good. The guitar again injects a strong psyche influence. The Caribbean elements return in Apparitions Of Departed Human Personalities. However, most of the tune is taken up by rather slow moving, slightly distorted guitars, making it a bit tiring at times. Parts of this tune are played reversed, and there are even some orchestral sounding parts.

Radio Hypnotic Intracerebral Control is in King Crimson Discipline style. Rhythmically this is a complex affair (the rhythms are programmed so there is no need to restrict yourself to what a human can play). The music is rather merry.

Dance Of The Nine Unknown Men has some sitar included (or a bastard son thereof, i.e., a synth doing the job). The tune itself is of the meandering kind, and the guitars are plenty high. The rather short conclusion is the orchestral Departure Of The All-powerful Light Beings.

Conclusion

In a way this is typical individualistic progrock from the States: rather technical, and sounding technocratic (well, that is the feeling I get). The sound is full, plenty of things happening all of the time, and thus little time for building atmosphere, and not many ear-catching melodies either. Nice about this album are the rather surprising Caribbean interludes and things like sitars and such. Although the music has its charm, especially in the first few songs, I tend to get weary after a while, for that the listener is offered relatively little ease. Whatever else you might think, though, Gak Omek offers something besides the usual in progressive rock.