Iron Compass Flux

The theme of Mirza's third record in as many years, Iron Compass Flux, is disorientation. The kind of disorientation caused by dizziness, vertigo, or libation. Much of the material on Iron Compass Flux is the sound made when, according to the group, they push the compass needle past acceptable levels in a valiant attempt to recreate the closing demolition scene of Antonioni's Zabriskie Point. Often, Iron Compass Flux feels like a satisfying and challenging new musical accompaniment to Jim Morrison's famed An American Prayer. Imagine in fact, new scenes in Apocalypse Now with limitless blissful and terrifying variations on The Doors "The End". On Iron Compass Flux there are instrumental psych/improv excursions crashing into unsettling textural soundscapes amidst smoke, low flying jets and clatter, where as the last vestiges of structure crumble, harmony and clarity prevail. There are also moments of strange and exotic delicacy and intimacy, when the mood of a piece is at once both Texas campfire song and Vietnamese folk music. There is comfort to be found in these strange and unfamiliar new places. Fred Mills said of Mirza's second record, '97s Anadromous/Bliss Out v.7, "Old school psychedelia's benevolent specters, particularly those haunting the West coast in the '60s (think Quicksilver/Dead) or Germany in the early '70s (Ash Ra Temple/Amon Duul ll), are summoned from the mists of time via lengthy excursions that elaborate on melodic themes.