The Third Eye

Earlier this year, we wrote about a jam band from Ireland called Space Shepherds and a record they released, Losing Time Finding Space. The six-track album contains an hour’s worth of psychedelic instrumental jams to get you in a chill mode. Space Shepherds are back with a new offering for your jamming pleasures – a record called What Fabric? released on July 20, 2023. My friends, it’s time to jam out.

About Space Shepherds and What Fabric?

There’s nothing overly complicated about Space Shepherds, and the simplicity is the beauty of it. They’re a psych-rock jam band from Ireland that does what you expect. This is not a knock on them – they have a single-minded purpose of playing and recording improvisational instrumental tunes that work great as music to get stoned to or relax to. Since I’m a sober dude, I go for the relaxing mode.

The band was formed in Belfast in 2017 by David Malone and Gareth Hill, and as the duo progressed, their sound did, too, and they added more instruments and members. Gareth and David provide the core guitar and drums, but they now have a bass, synth, more guitars, percussion sections, and even world instruments like didgeridoos. “The drop-in-drop-out element of the band ensures that no two improvisational jams are the same, and this does much to keep it fresh and exciting,” the band says in its bio.

What Fabric? is the band’s fourth full-length album, with their debut coming in 2020. They’ve played plenty of shows in Ireland, spreading the good news of the jam gospel, and this new album is a welcome addition to their catalog.

The Songs

The album contains four songs and is one hour, 12 minutes long. If you don’t love instrumental jams, this isn’t for you. But if you do – well, you’re in luck.

The first track is “Glint,” with a run-time of 13 minutes, 36 seconds, the shortest of all the tracks. You read that right – shortest. Strap yourselves in for the ride because Space Shepherds go to the galaxy’s outer reaches and truly shoot for the stars when they lay down their groove. With such lengthy tracks, it’s almost like they lose track of time when they’re in the zone and let the music carry them off into unknown parts.

Besides, time is a relative thing, right? Perhaps it moves slower for Space Shepherds when they’re jamming. It reminds me of the movie Interstellar when they explore other planets, and an hour on the alien world converts to a year on Earth. Same thing on this record – as the Shepherds jam, the first track of “Glint” and its 13-minute-plus runtime may feel like a minute to them.

I haven’t listened exhaustively to the Space Shepherds’ discography enough to know how this new record differs from their previous work. But from what they say, their sound has evolved as they’ve added new instruments and honed their craft. “Glint” has a chill vibe, and a spacey synth is evident, looping around while a slick bass line carries the track, and the guitar gently moves along.

Since these songs are improvisational, I imagine the band feeding off each other’s energy during the recording and letting things flow and go to unexpected places. The drummer responds to the guitarist, and the guitarist melds minds with the bass player, and the man on the synth adds in dashes here and there for an extra layer of texture. The music unfolds, expands, and the band creates spontaneously as if working on a collaborative painting together.

“Come Unstuck” is next and hits us with a funkier vibe. Think of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’s John Frusciante on guitar but put him in a jam band where he has full rein to play however he wants and for however long he wants. The dueling guitars on this track make it a keeper as they trade leads. “Come Unstuck” is a bit longer at 16 minutes, six seconds, and it takes several twists and turns, resulting in a fulfilling psychedelic journey.

“Who Knows” begins with the synth and an experimental side to the band that seems to be a new ace up their sleeve. This is the Big Whopper of the album, with a run-time of more than 27 minutes. For the heads out there, “Who Knows” will be the track for your ritual psychedelic trip. I even like the track name, as it implied a spiritual angle to me that Space Shepherds don’t claim to have all the answers we seek. They’re offering us a peek into the unknown and take us on a sonic journey, but they can’t identify the mysteries we encounter. Psychedelic music always has that spiritual angle for me, and a long-ass song like “Who Knows” is for me like a ticket to attempt to commune with the music.

The album closes with “Strangements,” a track that pushes past the 15-minute mark. Once again, the synth is prominent, and I’m led to believe this is a new aspect of Space Shepherds’ sound. I like it because it gives the song a highly psychedelic feel and the impression of space exploration. We should also note the skill behind the drumming. On “Strangements” and all the other tracks, the drums are played with precision and rhythm, keeping the groove intact and preventing the songs from devolving into free-form chaos.

“Strangements” is a free-form jam, though, like all the other songs. In this flexible style, Space Shepherds’ songs can wander through different peaks and valleys, returning to a few consistent notes and ideas while also letting them expand into new dimensions. This is a hallmark of jam-band music that I imagine likely comes from the techniques of free-form jazz. Not all who wander are lost.

Final Thoughts

Space Shepherds has again delivered a satisfying jam-band experience with What Fabric? Psychedelic music can take many forms, but it probably looks similar to this album when most people imagine it. Adding new layers to Space Shepherds’ sound, like a synthesizer and another guitar player, gives this album a depth and weight that may not have been apparent in previous works.

Not all listeners will be enamored by a 27-minute-plus song like “Who Knows,” but that’s the thing: music, like all arts, is subjective. You can take it or leave it. The style of Space Shepherds, which blends space rock elements and a jam-band mission, is one of the things I like most in psychedelic music. 

This is music for daydreams, late-night relaxation, and, if you want to get creative, for traveling to higher consciousness, as other space-rock bands like Astral Construct believe in. The music is positive, uplifting, and never dull. Spock in Star Trek used to say, “Live long and prosper,” and I think Space Shepherds would agree, but they have a variation on that phrase that has become their mantra: “Long live the jams.” What Fabric? is another message from their deep space journeys where the jams are alive and well, and I, for one, have to thank them for that.

Support Space Shepherds by finding them on Bandcamp or social media (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube).

Parting words: “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” – W.B. Yeats

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