Born beneath a marble-grey California sunset, Flying Canyon's self-titled debut is a refreshingly down-to-earth statement set against neo-folk's increasingly freak-fashion landscape (remember grunge wear?). Part of the magic: It seems just about effortless. To place the aesthetic within a contemporary constellation, find the Jewelled Antler-league trio somewhere between Ben Chasny's Compathia lullabies, the streaked tape wobble of Jakob Olausson's Moonlight Farm, or Jana Hunter's patchwork ambience. All those things, but with less roaming and fewer brambles.
Jewelled Antler mainstay Glenn Donaldson's part of the equation, and you can't generally go wrong with one of his projects. The California disciple's always skulking somewhere near JA's margins, including his holy-sounding solo work as the Birdtree and the Ivytree along with multi-person projects like Blithe Sons, the Franciscan Hobbies, Mirza, Skygreen Leopards, and Thuja.
The Antler résumé's carted out again (printed on tree bark with sap) because-- like his recent guest-spot on Wooden Wand's Second Attention-- in Flying Canyon, despite the acid-folk pedigree, Donaldson lets someone else take lead. For this outing, he rests in a shadowy self-made bed of drums, organ, banjo, flute, and acid-folk falsetto. He's joined by newest Skygreen Leopard (and fellow Second Attention guest) Shayde Sartin on bass and acoustic guitar and long-standing Leopard Donovan Quinn, aka sleepy nighttime magician Verdure, who plays slide guitar on a track. So basically, the Skygreen Leopard squad's gathered in silence, allowing sweetly grizzled Cayce Lindner to float atop the reverb sea.
Everyone's excellent, but Lindner steals the show with gentle, lonesome vocals that linger like a blend of Roky Erickson's solo work (sans twang), Skip Spence's throat-scratched submersion, and David Crosby's California dusk melody-- note the album cover's similarity to Crosby's first solo album, 1971's If I Could Only Remember My Name. Conjuring that era, I'd love to hear him duet with White Magic's Mira Billotte, as Grace Slick, of course. People have also mentioned Kris Kristofferson, but KK was one suave dude-- Lindner might be suave in a Daniel Higgs way, but he doesn't sing with Kristofferson's swagger or, for that matter, Higgs' solo work's possessed folk incanting. His vocals are tangibly sadder (without being mopey). Unlike some downer folkies, he doesn't whisper-- his voice is rich and he always opens up and sings, sometimes taking it as far as his vocal chords can rattle before cracking.
Not merely a bounteously bearded fromman, he also writes the memorable, refreshingly raga-free songs. This is unadorned but fathomless music. I like the idea of the reunited Saint Vitus hooking up with Vashti Bunyan, but the "California doom folk" tag that comes attached to the jewel box is a tad misleading. No doubt the music's slow and gloomy, but heavy? There are unexpected drum or bass sounds, but the sound remains spectral and spare. The doomiest track is the opener, "In the Reflection", which ponders "the stars' forgotten glow," while sonically perched atop deep-dish/detuned echo drums, lethargic Mudhoney bass (set to three on an amplifier), and seraphic guitar. When the bottom drops out, you feel it leave, but no more than you would a butterfly flapping its wings (and no, not the butterfly-effect butterfly).
Flying Canyon are less forest floor miasmatic than other Jewelled Antler offerings. The nine songs reintroduce the emotions and atmospherics of Donaldson's earlier work, but from within a cigarette-burnt Motel 6, not the branches of a warbling shade tree. Recorded on reel-to-reel by Donaldson-- you can feel the moss, dust, and despair growing on the side of his tape machine-- the set's paced at a dazed half-speed (this is where that doom thing sorta comes into play). Songs feel like culled, breathless fragments. Most seem to take place at night-- bodies give out (or exist as diamond mines), windows frame half-remembered experiences, harmonies end at dawn, people leave and turn away, it consistently rains.
The sooty atmospherics aren't built by accrued layering, but rather the spacious, intimately claustrophobic shag-rug feel of the room-- the way those early Scud Mountain Boys albums were recorded in a kitchen, around a table. But then, the dewy "The Bull Who Knew the Ring" is a lonesome prairie stride up the side of a mountain range. As with other songs, it could ostensibly creep for 30 minutes: Skip Spence's Oar left to disintegrate in a cedar lake (count the rings).
These days, psychedelic window dressing, PR-hatched mythologies, and six thousand and one new folk reissues a week are beyond tired. In fact, even the musicians often associated with the scene are working overtime to distance themselves frome the henna-dripping trainwreck. Flying Canyon's complexly understated sound, which reveals new textures and resonances with each listen, exists outside the cloying, faux-folk context: Behind weepy organ, cabinet hums, a surprising drum shivver, Lindner and friends carve out an erudite haze that foregoes caricature and wardrobe changes in favor of melody, inventive instrumentation, strong songwriting, and an honest, riveting charisma. Pretty novel, right?
