Camera Obscura is pleased to be able to continue their series of Salamander releases with the Minneapolis outfit's second full-lengther, titled Red Mantra. Our efforts to document the Salamander recordings were initially retrospective, with the band being effectively defunct at the time of the 1997 Red Ampersand CD, but interest in that recording has led to the reformation of Salamander as a recording entity. Thus, rumours of Salamander's demise have proven to be premature, with Red Mantra being a combination of archival material and new material recorded specifically for this release.

The Salamander archives have given up three thunderous power-drone instrumental improvisations, David's Opening, Return to Rural Highway (an evolution of the parched, desert themes of Danger on Rural Highway on their debut), and their magnum opus Red Mantra. The latter is nearly 25 minutes of textural guitar mayhem that does to the psyche pretty much what that wave did to the east coast of the US in Deep Impact.

The two newly-recorded tracks are Sean Connaughty songs, effectively balancing the improvised material. Earthborn Animal is sublime astral folk with Sean on haunted vocals/acoustic guitar and Erik Wivinus on Appalachian dulcimer. Old Mr. Jones is a mysterious folk ballad, leading into eight-or-so minutes of supercharged space rock recalling Hawkwind at their most motorised, but with twice as many IQ points.