?Four More Raga Moods? is another definitive slice of Phil Todd?s shape shifting drone mantra dream music. No matter how limited or impossible to find, every release by this one-man-plus sideshow proves to be a stimulating slice of homemade musical nirvana, and this album just may be the needle that broke the camel?s back. Each one of these four tracks is a shimmering portal to another realm, a soundtrack for alien worlds where there is no night, just blazing retina melting luminescence.

Audacious opener ?The History of Psychedelia? actually lives up to its billing with just over three minutes of field recordings, wind instruments and tape splices shifting over to a high pitched modulated tone and shifting again to drifting acoustic raga with distorted squelch overlaid ? absolutely mind-blowing stuff by any measure. This gives way to the free-form shimmer of the deep drone pulse, ?Hey Sunflower Motherfucker? (awww yeah, baby!), which glides on gentle light beams of amplified drone and electro-vibrations for just over 10 minutes. More than ever a relation can be traced to fellow countrymen Vibracathedral Orchestra, who combine this sort of glistening free trance guitar surface with tribal percussion. Todd and his band, which among others includes Ben Reynolds, Alex Jarvis, Alex Neilson and Pete Nolan this time out, largely forego the low end percussion though, instead focusing on a glorious never-ending rain patter of tinkling chimes, shakers and cymbals reinforced with glistening striations of distortion.

Nolan even gets a song named for him in the epic 33 min blast-off ?The Pete Nolan Effect,? which I can dig given Nolan?s involvement has been known to ratchet up the psycho-morphic properties of every one of his various recording projects (Majik Markers, GHQ, Valley of Ashes among them), and this one is no different with time-lapsing minimal drone and garage jazz grime crashing together and exploding in every direction at once.

20 min closer ?And the Prophet and the Loss? is a squiggly collage of burning cinders, buzzing flies and other cryptic found sounds. It makes for a nice enough return to earth, but there is a darkness inherent in the title and vibe of the piece that reflects the tension between following your own artistic muse and simply making it out alive. Todd claims he hates art with a point. I dare say these four ragas each have a point, and ?Four More Raga Moods? is a definitive Ashtray Navigations album, and beyond that, one of the finest drone/noise platters of 2006. 9/10 -- Lee Jackson (30 October, 2006)