Rita Raga - Flowing Circle EP (2023)

[acid being]

Rita Raga - Flowing Circle

Altar Records - ARDEP73

The Polish multi-instrumentalist Rita Raga is my favorite psychill artist (well, actually favorite after RA if you consider RA psychill artists rather than artists that sometimes make psychill). This new (last year ) EP combines blissful ambience with harder and more psychedelic moments.

 

1. Rita Raga feat. I.M.D. - Green Meadow 05:42

2 Rita Raga - Sea Of Fullness (Cabeiri Remix) 07:38

3. Mina & Rita Raga - Zywa Woda 10:50

4. Rita Raga & Fyre Ô - Wide Blue Sky 06:24

5. Rita Raga - White Blossom (Outro) 03:49

 

1. Green Meadow

Dreamy vocals and a trippy and funky guitar plucking sound over some lush pads make for a seriously chilled out and ambient feeling piece of psychill. 6.5/10

2. The Sea of Fullness

The mood starts off slightly darker and slightly more psychedelic here, a sharp pitch bending synth twangs into the foreground and a light sort of glitchy beat plays along with Rita's enchanting vocals. Some nice chord progressions and a bassy kick take over the last part of the track. Nice uplifting gated synths at the end are reminiscent of some of the best moments on her fantastic Mystic Melodies album. 7/10

3. Zywa Woda

A more tribal beat here and a more eastern feel to some of the vocals. Lovely bass accompanied by haunting whispering sounds. The production quality sounds great to me. This is my favorite track so far. At the half way mark we get a really nice kick coming in and we're into harder psychill which I found really enjoyable. 9/10

4. Wide Blue Sky

With a blissfully mellow opening, the track quickly picks up with the beat and introduces some very, very trippy patterns of sound. A hypnotic folky guitar melody takes over the foreground. This is great. I get a strong vibe of Irish folk music. We get a weird higher pitched voice-like synth picking up the melody and some quiet acidic sounds. If I had to give this a genre, it would be psyfolk. I'm reminded a bit of Posford's work with Celtic Cross and yeah some Shpongle but this is easily as good or possibly even better. It's so addictive I was really disappointed when the track ended. I would love it to go on for 15 minutes! Maybe Rita can give us some extended remixes of some of these tracks in the future? 10/10

5. White Blossom

The opening to this with waves of string sounds is so beautiful I could feel the beginnings of a couple of tears starting to well up. We get a gentle, slow beat, some quiet piano sounds, Rita's beautiful voice and a sparkly sound. And just like that this lovely EP is over. Again I wanted this track to carry on longer but it works just right as a gentle outro. 9/10

 

This is a beautiful EP which I am excited to listen to again, especially Wide Blue Sky which I am utterly hooked on! The first two tracks are closer to ambient / chillout than psychedelic to me, which is absolutely fine because sometimes that's exactly what you need to calm you down. I find all Rita's music incredibly soothing and comforting, a guiding light through any kind of mental voyage.

If you haven't heard much of Rita's music before I highly recommend you start with her Mystic Melodies album which is in equal parts soothing, groovy and extremely trippy and there are some harder full on remixes on it as well which were just great even for this old Goa head.

Flowing Circle shows she's definitely still got it and has some amazing collaborations. Wide Blue Sky though, wow I want to hear it again right now!

9/10

https://altar-records-europe.bandcamp.com/album/flowing-circle