The proclamation on their website that “Daturah is an instrumental five-piece from Frankfurt, Germany, playing some kind of ambient noise rock” doesn’t come close to describing the hallucinatory delights found in their epic three-song, 44-minute debut. “Datura” is the botanical name for Jimson weed, a powerful psychoactive nightshade used in Native American rituals, the use of which results in the psychological effects summarized best in the mnemonic phrase “blind as a bat, mad as a hatter, red as a beet, hot as hell, dry as a bone, the bowel and bladder lose their tone, and the heart runs alone.” The same could be said for the effects of Daturah’s transporting instrumental soundscapes when experienced under the right circumstances. Even if lazily deposited in the post-rock genre these three tracks transcend the trappings of cliché and expand the listener’s mind to the point of supreme enlightenment. “Shoal” opens with grandiose bombast, balancing dark and light, harsh and sublime, dissonance and euphony. “Warmachines” follows with a menacing, martial maelstrom of stomach-churning pathos and disharmony which culminates in a dynamic display rivaled only by brethren Mono, Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky. And “Lovelight” closes with elegiac movements and shimmering crescendos that peak majestically then dissolve in sonic shards. The pharmacological effects of Datura have been described as a living dream, an apt description for the transcendent music found herein. – Brian Way