From afar, Imaad Wasif and Stephen McBean certainly seem like kindred spirits, two cool-headed psychedelic warriors conjuring expansive sounds for expanded minds. Wasif, still probably best known for his work with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and McBean-- of Black Mountain and Pink Mountaintops-- are collaborators at heart. Their new project, so-called "New Acoustic Death Folk" ensemble Grim Tower, got its start in McBean's backyard as he and Wasif strummed away an afternoon on a bunch of curiously detuned guitars. Alongside Rob Barbato and Dan Allaire-- rhythm section of L.A. droners Darker My Love-- Wasif and McBean fleshed out those initial back patio tapes into the meditative thrum of Anarchic Breezes.
Where transcendence is concerned, Anarchic Breezes talks a good game; lyrically, you've got your cities in the clouds, your soothsayer-encircled pyramids, pretty standard takeaways from one mystical journey or another. The playing's beautiful, rich and unshowy, as impressive in its technique as its reserve. The title track, a delicate, instinctive duet, might be the best thing here, their playing at once meticulous and moving; McBean's "Let Death Become Your Comfort", its guitars wavering in the heat like Tinariwen, is a close second. Produced by McBean and Rob Campanella of the Quarter After and mixed by Mark Nevers in Nashville, it's a gorgeous recording, crisp and spacious, with just the right amount of embellishment. The trouble is in the songs. Most of Anarchic Breezes unfurls slowly, solemnly even, their droning strums and delicate fingerpicking eventually giving way to weighty choruses about the nature of things before retreating into the ether. Between its all-too-deliberate pace and McBean and Wasif's unusually graven delivery, Anarchic Breezes is kind of a slog; The spontaneity that initially sparked these songs is long gone, replaced with a kind of every-note-in-place perfection that doesn't exactly get the blood going.
Still, Breezes' occasionally exacting music is a far easier pill to swallow than its pie-eyed lyrics. Wasif, in particular, seems a bit lost amidst the tangerine trees and marmalade skies: as if the Egyptian time-traveler who spends his days "talking pyramids and getting stoned" in "All the Beautiful Things" weren't enough, the songs centers around a sorta-chorus of "get hiiiiigh." "Blue", though less explicitly moony, still manages to grate, imparting a kind of wisdom that confuses more than it clarifies: "Circle dot, circle dot," goes its unhelpful chorus, "You can't give what you ain't got." McBean, for his part, gets in a few ruminations on mortality that at least give you a little more to chew on. Even so, "Leaving My Old Life Behind" finds him above the clouds, beyond the sun, using physical highness as a metaphor for, well, you know. Even the less druggy stuff is delivered in something like hushed tones, lending the whole thing a "this'll blow your mind" portentousness that doesn't quite sit right with the less-than-mindblowing revelations they've brought back from beyond the bardo.
Anarchic Breezes is in many ways a modest record, charting out a few very specific music ideas in a thoughtful, if not exactly dazzling, fashion. It's beautiful, but rigidly so; hypnotic, but without the kind of intensity that'll hold you rapt, more about gathering energies than letting them loose. On their higher-profile releases, Wasif and McBean have proven themselves to be quite good at making grand gestures in their music seem huge without teetering over into grandiosity. Grim Tower turns that balance upside down, the ponderous nature of its lyrics overpowering the subtleties of its music. Anarchic Breezes does open up a bit after a few listens, but I'm still not entirely sure that's a good thing; with every spin, the music seems to grow more delicate, which just sends all those Castenada-core lyrics into starker relief. Occasionally plodding, and too ruminative by half, Anarchic Breezes is a journey in need of a destination, stuck between staring at the sun and gazing thoughtfully at its own navel.
