The Broken Face

After the goldrush #47

Donovan Quinn might still be best know for his work in the brilliant Skygreen Leopards combo, but given the way his solo music has developed in recent years that might very well have changed when it’s time to wrap up his career. Donavan Quinn & the 13th Month (Soft Abuse) finds insistent strumming and naked vocals floating right across psychedelic folk waters and like you would expect Quinn is rarely in a hurry, taking his time to suck out of the very core of his elegantly crafted folk songs. File somewhere between Dylan and the most structured side of the Jewelled Antler repertoire and you’re in the right ballpark.

After the goldrush #46

The Declining Winter’s Goodbye Minnesota (Rusted Rail) is an ideal companion for entering the fall. As a matter of fact I think I’ve read four or five descriptions of this album and every single one of them pointed out the connection to this season. Anyway, what we have here is the solo musical project of Richard Adams, a co-founder of former Broken Face cover stars, Hood. Hood has always been the uncrowned tzars of finding the well-hidden gates between electronica, indie rock, dub and folk-induced pop minimalism. Goodbye Minnesota sounds quite a bit like mid-period Hood, like a mixture of Rustic Houses and Forlorn Valleys and The Cycle of Days and Seasons, which beyond praise basically means fall reveries draped in moody acoustic drone hypnotism. I am a sucker for this kind of rain-soaked, blurry soundscapes and if you like me still return to those Hood albums on a regular basis you can’t really go wrong with this one.

Pelt Dauphin Elegies (VHF)

I know that writing about Virginia’s Pelt probably means preaching to the already converted, but after seeing these guys’ phenomenal set at Terrastock 7 nothing can ever stop me from spreading the gospel about their work. Their most recent album on the always-impressive VHF imprint is a droning affair that moves across a plane of acoustic unease, devotional noise –improv and spiritual, corrosive resonance. The first two tracks display jarring gongs and drifting tones that give way to screeching strings, but what really sets the standard here is the epic third track, “Cast Out to Deep Waters”. This is 32 minutes of sonic enlightenment at its finest, with dense layers of slowly unfolding, slightly exotic drones that come packed with anxious beauty of isolation and doubt. It’s a spectacular procession of aural bliss that actually gets close to the live experience, and that is definitely saying something. When it’s time to move across the line to the other side I can’t think of a better companion than Pelt.

Cloudland Canyon Lie in Light (Kranky)

This half-American, half-German duo delivers seven high and lonely krautrock epics draped in beguiling cosmic otherliness. The sound range from atmospheric droning buzz and wavering electronic gravity to relentless kraut grooves and homebrewed psych and although pretty much all of it borders familiar terrain, dating back to Germany in the ‘70s it’s still pretty stellar. Mainly so because of the band’s talent for combining and blending influences to something that in most cases sound like their own thing. There has been a wave of cosmic music recently and if the quality of this disc is any indicator that trend will probably last for a while yet.

The Doozer Sheet Music (Pickled Egg)

A cpl of weeks back I met this fellow who claimed that he doesn’t like pop music. Given his impeccable taste when it comes to peripheral sounds, that’s kind of hard to believe. I simply assume that it’s more a matter of having different definitions of what can be referred to as pop music. In my world, UK solo act the Doozer is just that, although I am sure some would probably question using such a term. Anyway, what we have here is an introspective pop album bathed in seductive psychedelia, blurry images of the British countryside, unexpected loops and hazy soundscapes. File somewhere along an imaginary axis leading from Syd Barrett to Chris Knox and then on to Pumice.

United Bible Studies Airs of Sun and Stone (Deep Water)

Preston Swirnoff Maariv (Last Visible Dog)

Preston Swirnoff is a San Diego-based electro-acoustic composer that expands the borders of said genre by adding substantial emotive elements to the mix. Where some talented folks tend to get stuck in technicalities and over ambitions we find Swirnoff doing it all right. He conjures hazy hypnotic soundscapes and minimalist pulsings of alien frequencies in a way that at first struck me as quite accessible, but which upon repeated listening revealed fragments of a pretty fucked-up dream. These fragments have been glued together by Swirnoff to something that goes beyond words as well as tedious genre names. Maariv is one of those masterworks that are destined to be forgotten by most and cherished by way too few.