Causa Sui - "Return To Sky" (Album Review)

By: Victor Van Ommen

Album Type: Full Length

Date Released: 18/03/2016

Label: El Paraiso Records

From being filled to the brim with grooves, lush tones, psychedelic travels, and so much more, “Return to Sky” is a trip well worth taking. Causa Sui are on top of their game here, playing off one another in musical unison. There’s not one moment during these five tracks that the instruments are pushed in separate corners. The jam is alive and well.

“Return to Sky” CD//LP track listing:
1. Dust Meridian (10:08) 

2. The Source (06:36)
3. Mondo Buzzo (08:30)
4. Dawn Passage (08:20)
5. Return to Sky (11:38)

The Review: 

Causa Sui’s new album, “Return to Sky,” starts with a push that is both steady and sober. Immediately, the focus is laid on Skøtt’s performance behind the drums - a theme that runs through the course of these five tracks - before taking off into the other worldly realm of what the band has continued to develop and define as their sound. When thinking about how to describe Causa Sui’s sound, there’s only one word that comes to mind and that’s immersive. The deeper they go into their career, the more immersed in heavy psychedelic music they become.

This immersion is thanks to El Paraiso Records, the label the band runs. In part a platform for Causa Sui’s own music but it’s also home to a number of forward thinking psych acts. Bands like the prog-psych Brain Ellis, or Papir’s semi-improvised psych-jazz, all the way through the experimental collective Shiggajon, it’s apparent the label has a progressive mentality when it comes to music. El Paraiso Records provides their artists freedom so that they can explore the spirituality of music, and that brings us back to Causa Sui. They’re a Danish instrumental psychedelic four piece that have a good number of releases under their belt, each one moving in a different direction than the last. Their last studio album was the acclaimed “Euporie Tide,” a must-have for fans of heavy psych. Causa Sui turned heads with this album but now with the release of “Return to Sky” we can look back at “Euporie Tide” and realize that it played an integral role in the development of an ever changing band rather than defining who they are as musicians.

So where “Euporie Tide” sounded like a band who was confident and at their peak, it didn´t entirely incorporate everything that Causa Sui was capable of. That´s what the Summer Sessions and Pewt´r Sessions were for; these releases were used to show more of the musical palette Causa Sui paints from. With the release of “Return To Sky,” we hear an album made by a band injected with complete artistic freedom, this time using all the colors they can. That’s not to say “Return to Sky” is the best thing they’ve ever done – it’s too soon to tell and it depends on where your tastes lie – but the album is certainly one helluva mind-melting psychedelic affair of celestial proportions.

One of the most inviting elements of “Return to Sky” is that it has been pieced together to create an album. That is to say that the track order is just as important as the music within each track. There’s a lush flow from beginning to end, barely breaking between songs. Such a flow accentuates Causa Sui’s jammy nature, thus providing ample opportunity for the listener to be immersed in the music.

Because this album is both instrumental and flows seamlessly from start to finish, it’s hard to pick the songs apart individually. Though each song stands strong on their own, there’s still a need for the song’s surroundings to create a whole picture. The intense build led by the clean wash of cymbals in “Dust Meridian”s second half wouldn’t have the same effect if it wasn’t immediately followed by its serene outro that melts beautifully into the rolling rumble of “The Source.” The heavy riff here invites listeners to nod along in approval before it secretly dissolves into the groovy Brant Bjork ride-along of “Mondo Buzzo.” It’s here that the bass tones really come to life as they rise to the surface with a percussive push. “Dawn Passage” follows, speaking to the ladies by how it playfully dances along with one guitar flirtatiously chasing the other in song’s midsection. The album moves from here into the two-part title track that sums up the album well. The first half is a rocking jam that lets the freak flag fly and its complemented by the free-jazz, kraut-rock outro that’s just as good as anything that preceded it. And then just as subtle as the changes between each song, the album comes to a satisfying close.

From being filled to the brim with grooves, lush tones, psychedelic travels, and so much more, “Return to Sky” is a trip well worth taking. Causa Sui are on top of their game here, playing off one another in musical unison. There’s not one moment during these five tracks that the instruments are pushed in separate corners. The jam is alive and well. Causa Sui sound like they’ve gotten lost in these tunes and you as a listener will, too. So throw on the disc, hit play, and let Causa Sui immerse you in their world.

“Return to Sky” is available here

Band info: facebook