In a recent piece for Impose, Woodsman guitarist and Fire Talk chief Trevor Peterson describes the rather hazy inception of his label. “I remember hanging at this bar in Denver we frequented, probably stoned, most definitely intoxicated and waxing on about some deep shit,” he writes of the night spent with his bandmates, including guitarist and sample hound Mark Demolar. “We were all huddled around this little campfire in the back and the conversation was heavy. It ended with a silent moment and Mark mumbled, ‘fire talk’ signifying the weight of the convo.” The anecdote is exemplary of recent Colorado headlines and of Woodsman itself. Though the group relocated from Denver to Brooklyn in 2011, its third LP has the feeling of something recorded mountainside. It echoes with steady rhythms yet can fall prey to a meandering scope. It’s wild and, yes, psychedelic*.*
In 2011, Woodsman were—like many groups—swept up in a riptide of Animal Collective comparisons. And for good reason: On Rare Forms, Demolar’s vocals combined with Woodsman’s brand of electro-psych fit that bill. A song like “I Can’t Move” might even be able to fool a focus group plucked off of Bedford Avenue. But, on Woodsman, the vocals are absent. It allows for a more potent—if not entirely diverse or plotted-out—effort. The fat has been trimmed, which let the instrumentals shine through. Still, their patterns are wild.
Not to delve too deeply into sticky territory, but Woodsman have settled into its moniker most appropriately this time around. Woodsman can be raw and feral, more akin to the sounds cultivated by labelmates Tjutjuna—if not quite as hard and driving. The dissonant-soaked “Pre” borrows an exclamatory page from the ferocity of Lightning Bolt or, even, Buddy Rich before “Gravelines” settles on the crux of a gameplan: rolling, primitive rhythms bathed in circuitous guitar parts. It’s a state of nature—perhaps a sonic counterpart to a campfire night like Peterson describes—with sounds of distant chants. It’s Thomas Hobbes on a vision quest.
The chugging “Healthy Life” takes one of those far-flung incantations from a very New York place. The album was recorded with Daniel James Schlett at his Strange Weather studio. (Drummer Dylan Shumaker rounds out the trio; another drummer, Eston Lathrop left the group around the time of the move but can still be heard on album closer, “Teleseparation.”) At the time, Strange Weather was located on Broadway under the J train, and the band entered the Hewes Street station with a portable recorder. What they found was a talkative MTA booth employee ready to reflect on life. It’s a cute tidbit and one that makes relatively insipid samples much more interesting. Most of all, it places Woodsman in its new urban context.
As advertised, “Teleseparation,” features two drummers but it’s not the only one to feature rhythmic layering and, also, just plain-old swift movements from Shumaker. His drumming isn’t overly complex but the way he features bassy beats on his kit—as on the hooky “In the End, Remember When?”—is invigorating. His Remo bill has got to be steep.
Still, other tracks don’t benefit from such distinguishing characteristics and can run together into a monotonous blur. “Loose Leaf”—a dispensary name waiting to be trademarked (if it hasn’t been already)—is the only tune that clocks in over the six-minute mark: Phish New Year’s Eve jams these are not. But, despite some decent editing, there’s often a directionless effect. Certainly some sense of meandering or searching is intended, but the album falters when it loses any semblance of catchiness. “Obsidian,” for example, crawls along for three minutes but doesn’t end up anywhere distinctive—laser sounds spiraling into the ether like a Star Wars ship that’s having trouble starting. It’s a bit paradoxical to demand direction from a band which features so many psychedelic characteristics. Isn’t having definitive direction anti-psychedelic? Possibly. But some additional order, here, shouldn’t have gone up in smoke.
