My Cat Is An Alien/Talweg “The Secret of the Space Bubble / > Eternal Beyond > IV” (Opax/Elliptical Noise/Up Against The Wall, Motherfuckers!, 2025)
This latest opus from the Opalio brothers is a pair of single-sided art LPs devoted to two very different performances featuring the duo’s longtime collaborator Joëlle Vinciarelli (Talweg/La Morte Young). In classic Opalio fashion, The Secret of the Space Bubble was inspired by a vision that Roberto had of four astronauts performing in zero gravity.
The lucky fourth astronaut in this case is Talweg’s other half (Eric Lombaert) and the combination of his virtuosic freeform drumming with Vinciarelli’s strangled flugelhorn partially steers things in a more Sun Ra-esque spaced-out free jazz direction than usual. There are, however, some other unique factors in play, as the Opalios exclusively used Vinciarelli’s collection of unusual and ancient instruments rather than their usual gear. Also, it was recorded using only two ambient mics to create a “vortex of sound” where all of the sounds and their reverberations were “centrifuged/blended together” to achieve the necessary “space bubble” effect.
Even by MCIAA standards, it is quite a challenging and far out affair, as the aforementioned space jazz uneasily coexists with folk horror flutes, shimmering chimes, an inventively repurposed clock, and wordless vocals that resemble a bizarre experimental opera. At its best, it sounds like an antique clock shop has become possessed by the spirit of an alien gamelan ensemble, which is a quite mesmerizing environment to find oneself in. I especially loved the jangling and echoing metal sounds on this one. In fact, they almost make me wish that the individual sounds could be handed off to a team like Holy Tongue & Shackleton to be anchored by a heavy dub bassline, but that kind of accessibility is simply not on the alien agenda.
The ensemble of intrepid psychonauts is reduced to a trio for the fourth installment of the decade-spanning “Eternal Beyond” collaboration, which draws its inspiration from both Georges Bataille’s philosophical writings and Tibetan Buddhism. Unsurprisingly, I could not begin to tell you how those forces ultimately shaped the direction of the piece, but the three artists did pare down their instrumental palette to just an “antique upright piano soundboard,” Vinciarelli’s trumpet, and the usual expected alientronics.
Roberto’s wordless vocals again add an otherworldly operatic element to the performance, but the rest of the piece feels like massive, rusted metal strings being engulfed in a storm of electromagnetic interference. That is merely the appetizer though, as the whole cacophony soon gets sucked into a hissing and whooshing deep space maelstrom of trippy electronic bloops and gibbering extradimensional jungle sounds wrested from Joëlle’s aggressively misused trumpet.
Needless to say, it is quite an impressively intense and unhinged piece, which makes it a very fitting companion for The Secret of the Space Bubble despite the differing lineups. Given that, this double LP would make a very difficult and indulgent entry point for the curious, but longtime fans will understand that that is simply the price of admission for a synapse-frying experience like nothing else on earth. For those out there who have been wondering how much deeper into the uncharted outer limits of psychedelia the Opalios could possibly go, however, these two albums provide quite an emphatic answer.
Listen here.
