Pretty Lightning is a psychedelic blues duo and the spiritual home of Christian Berghoff and Sebastian Haas – brothers in mind and sons of the Datashock family collective. Formed in 2007 their debut LP was released via Fonal and showcased their rolling and tumblin’ Spacemen 3 in the Mississippi chug.
A Magic Lane of Light and Rain is an excellent album, there’s great layering of sounds, solid drumming and bass provides an excellent backbone on which the songs are built. There are excellent grooves and guitar tones from acoustic to heavily distorted. The vocals are excellent too, often heavily processed they have an ethereal sometimes disembodied feel.
It’s available now on Cardinal Fuzz (CFUL045) as a CD edition, available from Cardinal Fuzz online shop
A Gift From a Bone to a Bell This song has a great layered opening of guitar sounds leading into solid drumming and a great riff. The vocals are heavily processed and have an ethereal feel to them. The song has really nice changes in feel, there’s almost a middle eastern feel to the riff and the song has great momentum.
Bow Low Organ sound and laid back drums accompanied by heavily distorted guitar create a great vibe. Similar style to the vocals again, nice contrast with the more acoustic sounding riff. The bass gives the song a great momentum.
Good Old Liar A great riff and sound effects backed by solid drumming create another great vibe. The vocals have a great laid back feel. It’s a great groove with a subtle solo and really nice changes in feel.
Graveyard Howls Great chime type sounds and background drone create a great tension. There’s really good layering of processed slide guitar sounds leading into an excellent slide guitar riff and there’s a solid groove provided by the drumming. The song has really hypnotic qualities, it’s a great sound especially with the processed vocals slightly in the background again. There’s an excellent change in feel with the slide guitar taking prominence returning back to the groove again before a final build of tension and release to end.
Hypnooze A great opening riff and slide guitar, the drumming again provides a solid backing. The bass is quite subtle, the song has a looping quality which is quite hypnotic.
Marble Moon Excellent organ sound to open accompanied by a great distorted riff. The song has excellent momentum provided by solid drumming and bass again. The vocals have a really ethereal feel and there’s a really nice tremelo distorted riff against jangly background sounds. Another great groove.
Moonshine Blooze A great riff to open backed by solid drumming and very ethereal vocals. It has a kind of middle eastern vibe at times with nice changes in feel.
The Hobo Theme Nice scratch / muted pick riff to open accompanied by slide guitar. The vocals have a disembodied feel to them and the song feels a bit dissonant at times which works really well providing a great contrast.
The Rainbow Machine A rising organ sound to open leading to a very distorted riff propelled by solid drumming. Excellent vocals again, a great psych vibe with excellent riffing and background sounds.
Woodlands A great distorted riff to open against as strummed riff provides an excellent contrast. There’s solid drumming and excellent vocals again.
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