It’s hard not to listen to Ben Asbury, the 23 year-old Atlanta native behind Axxa/Abraxas, and not think about all of the sweet, long-haired stoners who haunted record stores back in my college town. They were the guys with obsessive record collections and an extensive knowledge of zine culture, dudes with the wherewithal to run their own mail order tape labels and put on all-ages shows in shitty makeshift venues while still finding time to pursue mostly unusable degrees. Maybe they also sold you weed. Ben Asbury definitely seems like one of those dudes.
For a few years now, Asbury has been working as Axxa/Abraxas, turning out charmingly messy psych-pop and releasing it into the world via his own label, RTA Arts Collective. Given the wily nature of his music and his visual art (he is also an accomplished silkscreen artist), the label’s official motto—"Archetypal artwork in reflection of the Cosmic Harmony"—makes perfect sense. On Axxa/Abraxas, Asbury’s first official full-length on Captured Tracks, the songwriter takes a lifetime love of outré psych-pop and squeezes it into occasionally overstuffed but generally affable songs about night rides and mystical winds.
For someone whose earlier work could often be so gloriously messy, the 10 tracks on Axxa/Abraxas are surprisingly straightforward. “I Almost Fell” aims for an Apples in Stereo-like pop and is the record’s catchiest track, and “Ryan Michalak (Is Coming to Town)” has the kind of Crystal Stilts swagger that sounds excellent blasting loudly out of a pair of vintage speakers. Still, Asbury’s lyrics, when considered outside of their trippy environs, can be rough. Only someone with his powerful wail can get away with the likes of “Close your eyes so your mind can see/ Try to find what’s your destiny/ Nothings free” and make it sound both convincingly metaphysical and absolutely sincere.
Given Asbury’s claim to have discovered punk rock in the Third Grade, it makes sense that his music feels so intentionally kaleidoscopic. Influences like Television Personalities, Grateful Dead, and Neil Young & Crazy Horse (with an emphasis on the Crazy Horse) are heard throughout. The most obvious precursors appear to be local. Given that he is a Georgia native, and that most of Axxa/Abraxas was written during his time as a student in Athens, one can’t help but hear the ghostly echoes of the prodigious Elephant 6 Recording Company, particularly the Olivia Tremor Control.
Axxa/Abraxas was mixed and engineered by Woods member Jarvis Taveniere, and much of it sounds like it could actually be a Woods record. It's a charming album from an artist with an obsessive/compulsive love for writing shambolic, vaguely psych-infused rock songs but it doesn’t distinguish itself from any number of similar records from this sphere over the past few years. Asbury’s personality and his charismatic voice save it from being completely generic, and one hopes they'll carry him into weirder landscapes on future releases.
