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IMPROVIJAZZATION NATION, Issue #97, December 2009
If you don't recognize Dan's name, you probably aren't very familiar with the whole home-taper underground scene that I was a big part of from the mid-'80's up through the mid-'90's... he & I did a tape or two together, mainly because I was so highly impressed with his psychedelic flourishes, even on the tapes. I mean, this dude can take "common" occurrences & turn them into sonic trips you'll have difficulty recovering from... like a form of "musical acid", if you will. He's literally outdone himself on this 2-CD set (25 songs, about 2 1/2 hours). Unfortunately, I couldn't find any digital downloads for you, but when you listen to tracks like "Pseudoephederine Travel Lodge", you'll see what I mean instantly... I just loved the sound of the germs infesting the minds of travelers.. ha! ha! Though the downloads aren't there, you can get a bit more information on Dan's works (which are extensive) at www.cropcirclecollective.com (just click on Dan's name there). Each of his recordings (ever since I first started receiving/reviewing him) come with a full-fledged home-made booklet that contains all the lyrics... don't expect to just "read through" them in one sitting, either... if you're listening to the music as you read them, you'll become so enchanted, it will take hours to make it through the first couple of pieces... I'm talking epic here, folks (it took me 3 sittings to absorb the entire adventure)! & did I mention - psychedelic? This is excellent music, well-recorded & (always) FUN - the key ingredient in any Susnara production. His vocals will clearly make you think "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Who Is The Walrus" & other great tunes from that whole era. For any & all into music that lifts you and makes you think beyond your nose - this album is MOST HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! It gets an "EQ" (energy quotient) rating of 4.93. Visit the Crop Circle Collective site (above) to get more information. —Rotcod Zzaj

ROCKTOBER MAGAZINE, Issue #47
Dan is the Man! Mr. Pop Poetry.

HIROSHIMA YEAH!, Issue #52, June 2009
Here is Friend of HY! Dan Susnara’s long-awaited and just plain LONG new release, which features an exhausting 30 tracks, spread out over two CD-Rs and including a nice booklet containing lyrics and pics. The whole thing kicks off in pretty low-key fashion with “Ghostsong”, a sweetly somber keyboard ballad, but then shit starts getting WEIRD on the frantic, wordy and paranoid “Pseudoephederine Travel Lodge”, which puts me in mind of a song from Lou Reed and John Cale’s “Songs For Drella” that I can’t quite remember the name of at this present moment. “Small” is a plaintive and pretty 1970s-esque piano ballad that turns out to be the calm before the storm that is the next track, an epic piece—or pieces—called “The Greater Improved/A Quart For Tommy/Skywalka/A Useable Amount” that starts off as an unsettling mixture of recurring samples, odd noises and backwards doo-dah (which becomes quite maddening after awhile) before switching gear into a kind of Eastern Art of Noise dance symphony that eventually mutates into a space-rock guitar freak-out. Bizarro! This track alone would probably cause thousands of Japanese noise NUTS to cum themselves with glee and part with all their hard-earned yen (you would do well to take NOTE of this potentially lucrative business opportunity, oh Danny boy!) “Ringer” is a minimalist’s DREAM of a song that transforms into a John Martyn/Echoplex-ish workout in the end. “My Places” originally appeared, in instrumental form, as a Song of the Month on the cropcirclecollective.com website where you can ALSO read-all-about Dan Susnara and OTHER fabby artistes like his band, 9 On Bali, I loved the song THEN but I love it even MORE now as its spooky, serial killer lyrics make for an eerie, yet compelling, listen (“The cities and victims blurred in overdrive/I chose impulsion in a natural way/I got creative with power tools/their fragments scattered ‘cross Nesby Park”). “Heatflakes and Fevervision” is a dramatic and strange synthstrumental while “15 Minutes” is a breezy, welcoming slice of 1960s-style pop with a Noughties twist and Byrds-ian harmonies. “What’s Left” tells a dark tale of domestic abuse and gloomy hotel room couplings that somehow reminds me of Edwyn Collins… don’t ask me WHY! “Spider Richard” consists largely of samples of “Adam Bohman & friends” (?) while the wonderfully titled “Leaves Float Thru a Disappearing House” is a VERY nice instrumental of understated jazz funkiness. “Wars at Sea” is another ZTT/Art of Noise-ish, avant-garde instrumental and “Furniture Outlet” is a rather addictive drinking song… and THAT’S all just on disc ONE! Disc two begins with the, I would wager, David Lynch-inspired nightmare of “The Avenue Civilized” (because there are samples used from his film “Inland Empire”, either on this track or on some OTHER track, and ‘cos its submerged vocals and industrial bleakness kinda SOUNDS like something you’d hear if you were unlucky enough to be trapped in the surreal, black and white universe of “Eraserhead” or “The Grandmother”) which has lyrics that seem to pertain to doing LSD in a medically-supervised environment. Next up is an anti-capitalist, Pink Floyd-sampling stomper called “Time Spent as an Amoeba” which is followed by “Ha Ha”, rolling, jaunty wordplay set to an acousticy tune that’s bright as a summer’s morning. In contrast, “Site of a Dream” is a rainy, ambient soundscape of traffic noise that unfurls into some lovely finger-picked guitar lines. This particular track is one for the late-night headphone-wearing connoisseur and this vibe is carried into “Far”, which has lyrics that read like an abstract Japanese poem. “Mid Mgmt” is an ultra-relatable anti-boss song (“To see you in jeans is disgusting enough/but to see you relaxed is just frightening as fuck”) that makes me PROUD to be friends with people who have no ambition to “climb the career ladder”. Fuck THAT shit. Oh, and, while you’re at it, “PUNCH YOUR BOSS xxx” (©some graffiti I saw scrawled somewhere on Sauchiehall Street). “W.B.T.U.” is an eerie, drifting instrumental featuring sampled bagpipes while “nonperson” is a dinky late-period-Beatles-esque piano ditty. “Espionaut (The Man From L.O.O.P.)” is another mellow instrumental to soothe the savage brain and “Guardian A” sounds like some long-lost early 1980s Rough Trade band. “Dolphins/I Believe Her” starts off with a brief fragment that’s over FAR too quickly before veering off into ambient drift and then turning into an odd, jerky number that’s not too dissimilar to early Talking Heads. “Price On Our Heads” is a great little story song about a couple on the run from the law after committing an unnamed crime and, then, the album winds down with a REALLY lovely ballad called “Shenstone”, about memories of lost love, that’ll leave you with a lump in your throat if you’ve got ANY feelings at all. Overall, this release is a delightful mixture of cool songs and strange shit and it can be all YOURS for the bargain sum of $15.