Mysterium Tremendum

As concept albums go, they hardly come any grander. On his latest release the former Grateful Dead drummer turned respected ethnomusicologist attempts to ‘sonify’ the universe, sampling NASA-recorded sounds from deep space and then adding a good ol’ rock’n’roll backbeat and a choice selection of global rhythms. If Hart’s claim to have translated into music the sonic reverberations of the Big Bang, which created the universe 13.7 billion years ago, is a tad too cosmic to wholly credit, don’t worry; you don’t really need a degree in astrophysics to enjoy what’s in the grooves of these rather remarkable 12 tracks. Mysterium Tremendum is far more rooted in rock’n’roll tradition than some of Hart’s global drumming projects, with singer Tim Hockenberry sounding uncannily like Peter Gabriel and guitarist Gawain Matthews noodling in a manner of which Jerry Garcia would have been proud, while the Grateful Dead’s longtime wordsmith Robert Hunter supplies the lyrics. For those who know the Dead’s canon, the experimental tones of 1975’s Blues For Allah are perhaps the closest analogue. But the songs are also imbued with all that Hart has since discovered on his subsequent musical adventures, making field recordings across the planet and curating the Library of Congress/Smithsonian Institute’s priceless world music sound archives. Rhythms drawn from sources as diverse as the South American rainforest and the Mbuti pygmies of the Congo blend seamlessly with jam-band rock tropes, creating an endlessly fascinating hybrid. It’s probably Hart’s most successful attempt yet at fusing his two parallel musical careers as rock drummer extraordinaire and intrepid world music explorer.