Darkness of the deep. Unseen resonances drift/float/hover in nowhere. That echo is a sea-star buried in mud. That other hum is an eel threading through murk.
Deepness of the dark. Obscure sounds linger/pulse/murmur in oblivion. That chord is bioluminous jellyfish and squid, rootless glimmers above worms and ghost crabs. That other reverberation is still and void.
Of this we know nothing.
I owe Peter Colclasure an apology. As you may have noticed, we had been posting Ball of Wax 68 track reviews once or twice a day, or at least a few per week, since May. (You may have also noticed there are a lot of tracks on Ball of Wax 68.) And then nothing since June 30th, more than two weeks ago. You might have thought, reasonably enough, that Nick Jaina’s “Cauterize” was the last track on this volume, but oh no, there are three more tracks! And they’re great! And I have been meaning to write this track review for more than two weeks, but the world just started to get on top of me (as it did a lot of us around late June in particular), and I felt overwhelmed and unable to focus, and then every couple days I would say “Okay, this is it, I’m writing this goddamn blog post about this beautiful goddamn piece of piano music by my goddamn friend Peter,” and I would sit at the computer and put the song on, and it would just wash over me, an undulating wave of loveliness and emotion that seemed to be exactly what I needed to hear as a human, that left me with a moment of peace and stillness, but never left my brain with any words to express what it was I was feeling or hearing, because how can we truly express what it is to live through this exhausting, draining, horrible moment in America and then be confronted with a thing of such heart-rending beauty? We can’t. I can’t, anyway. So, Peter, I wish I had better words right now, but thank you for the music. I needed it.
I’ve been aware of Nick Jaina for years due to mutual friends and just being fellow musicians swimming around the PNW creative ecosystem, but it was only via the miraculous TELEPHONE project that Nick finally made an appearance on Ball of Wax. (How was that a whole year ago already?) This instrumental volume happened to coincide with the release of Nick’s mostly instrumental album Elemental: Music for a Film, which opens with the subtly gorgeous, achingly tender “Cauterize.”
“Cauterize” is propelled by soft, yet insistent piano 1/8 notes that carry through the whole piece, while other piano voices weave in and out in sweet counterpoint. Occasionally a guitar string or two is heard as well, and sheets of undulating tone that might have begun as a guitar or an organ lap in and out like a sonic tide rolling in . . . and then out. Like “Cauterize,” the entire Elemental album is a rich and fulfilling musical experience that deserves your ears’ attention (and your wallet’s money).
Ball of Wax mainstay Darryl Blood returns on Volume 68 with “Street Flute,” a mellow contemplative piece that gradually adds instrumentation as it rises from its slumber. At first, sustained synth notes and oceanic wash suggests a somnolent ambient piece, but then clean electric guitar emerges to gently play a few chords and a pretty figure. Enter a flute, a flute from the street one presumes, which plays the main motif that seemingly summons drum machine and semi-tuned barroom piano. After a quieter cycle or two, a gaggle of instruments return to play the theme before they all recede so only street sounds remain.
S. Eric Scribner‘s “Processional” is a solemn affair. Even without the title, the slow, insistent drum beat and swirling soundcape of flute, ambient sounds, and piano manipulations call to mind a long train of dignitaries, possibly from some ancient or undiscovered civilization, maybe even on another planet, commencing a great, elaborate ceremony. (Which is appropriate, as this music was created as a companion to Scribner’s series of fantasy novels set in the world of Tond.) As such, the structure feels loose, as if the assembled players are playing not to a score, but to the slow, ceremonial assembly of people unfolding before them. The drum sets everything in motion, of course, and while the berobed and behatted get themselves in order and make their way to the front of the hall, the other players phase in and out, perhaps using different sounds to signify various members of this esteemed body. Once everyone is assembled, staring out upon the rest of us with great pomp, the flute and drum bring us to a close, the final drum hit ringing out to lead us into . . . whatever brought us all here.
I’m always happy to have some new loopy guitar weirdness from our pals electric bird noise in my inbox, and “si ti sa” does not disappoint. Despite its pop song run time, this piece is just as compelling and fully fleshed out a musical statement as any of their works, dropping us right into a chunky, rhythmic loop that sustains all the way through, as many phrases, moods and melodies are added, subtracted, piled on, and dissected. Liquid ebow lines trade, and then seem to do direct battle with, sharp polyphonic jabs, climaxing in a finale as tight and satisfying as any pop tune. (Well, to me, anyway.)
Years ago at the graduation celebration of a friend’s daughter, I stood over a fire grilling salmon and chatting with the recent graduate’s father. He was from Greece and curious about how to cook salmon over a grill. I thought about the number of salmon within a mile of me likely to be grilled on that sunny, late spring afternoon and the many ways that they might be prepared. I laughed, looked around the yard, and suggested that everyone present probably had their own best way to cook salmon. He smiled and said that this was the same for him at home. I asked him what he would be grilling. He said, “Lamb.” I was intrigued. “I have always wanted to roast a lamb. How do you prepare it?” I asked. “Smear it in olive oil and rub it with salt and rosemary,” he told me, “then you place it over a fire on a spit and turn it from time to time. The thing is, everyone there thinks they know the best way to roast a lamb. Some say the fire is too hot, others say it’s too cold. Some say the lamb is too high, others say too low. Some tell you to turn it more, while others tell you that you are turning it too much.” I laughed again thinking about this and imagining Greek families meeting at backyard feasts from then through antiquity having the timeless argument about the one true way to cook lamb over a fire.
The Luna Moth’s offering of “Lamb” on Ball of Wax 68 reminded me of this conversation. Its notes and beat float and develop in and out of time. Closing my eyes and listening to its hypnotic pulse I could just as easily imagine myself a few years ago in a Greenwood backyard or in ancient times along the blue Aegean coast. The Luna Moth’s “Lamb” is a feast for the ears and one that should be shared with others now and for a long time to come. It should be shared and stories should be told about where it took you and about where you are from.
Swirling layers of warm, static-like fuzziness are turned into something cohesive by a few simple bass notes. Then, like coming up from a subway at night, the white noise of the underground gains a new life on top of that foundation. It then gains direction. Gains a pulse of life as rhythms become concrete. Gains a melody as layers of ping-ponging guitars reach out of the haze. Then they all give up, decaying echoes following them out, leaving us back with the noise that brought us here, and we go back underground.
This is a soundtrack to accompany a solitary moment, or in headphones to create solitude in a crowd; either way it inspires contemplation and consideration.
“You Say Love” is the title track from a collaborative album by our pal Drew Danburry, Chaz Prymek, and Dylan McGuinn. I don’t know much about the other folks, but based on what I’m hearing in this track, this seems to be a collaboration comprised primarily of guitars upon guitars, which could really spell disaster, or at least mediocrity, but in the right hands, it’s truly a thing of beauty. “You Say Love” definitely falls in the latter category. It’s primarily based on a deceptively simple (six bars plus two beats, leaving the listener relieved yet somewhat back-footed each time we come back to the beginning) repeating melodic line and chord progression, accompanied by swirling, echoed-out guitar noises and field recordings that gradually grow over the course of the song’s run time. What starts off as an enjoyable color to the main theme starts to demand more and more of your attention, while the chords and melodies build in response. There are also new sounds, what might be strings and winds, soaring above, and a bit of bass reinforcement to the primary theme. This dynamic continues to the end, where the instruments drop off and we’re left with a swirling mass of instrument noise and shuffling sounds, that cycles up into a whirlwind of sound, and then–
The Foghorns – Turn to the Moon
(Self-released, September 2021)
“Apocalypse (for Alan Wilson),” the opener on the Foghorns’ recent Turn to the Moon album, is hands-down my favorite song from their vast, expansive catalog. It’s the simplest of arrangements – a singer and an acoustic guitar – and yet it’s a world in and of itself. Lead Foghorn Bart Cameron sings to an unknown person who’s not necessarily a lover or a child or even a friend. All we know is that this person is disappearing into suffering and the narrator is reaching out with mercy and mysterious hope. While it seems tailor made for the dystopian terror of living in Trump’s America or the isolation and fear of the recent pandemic, I know that this song, and this recording of this song, predates both eras. Recorded, per the Foghorns’ production taste, on basically a steam engine some years ago, “Apocalypse (for Alan Wilson)” is sublime and impossibly human, imploring “Don’t wait for the apocalypse / Do not hold out to the end. / Before it all gets too much for you to stand / Come back to me again.”
“40 Watt Light” adds harmonica to the sonic palette, imploring the listener “If you see my 40 watt light, drive on by” in a lonesome cowboy blues. The woozy starkness carries on through most of the record, pulling in characters like the “Queen of Decatur” and “The Boy on the Bus Again” before meditating about how “Sean’s Gone” when, in fact, you’re actually Sean. The missing persons drawn across Turn to the Moon struggle to temper the despair with resignation, but the levee never fully breaks. Two cover songs shift the temperature – a cover of Casey Ruff’s dollar-draft friendship anthem “You Don’t Bother Me” and a fleshed out, faithful cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” that offers relief by putting on a dignified costume and escaping to another time.
My runner-up favorite song on the record is the semi-cryptic “Night of the Comet,” a folk song packed with low culture references leading back to wisdom about the comforting delusion of distraction, how, at “the end of the empire,” “I found my peace in a scream queen / The decimation of man is a happy ending.” I know my record collection and vintage Heavy Metal magazines and ’70s Euro horror DVDs (yes, I still watch DVDs – don’t @ me) and bagged and boarded Bronze Age Marvel beauties won’t save me, but Jean Rollin’s gossamer female vampires make me happy and I need to feel happy now and again.
The album ends with a beautiful bummer of a song that looks outward, placing the lost soul in the social sphere with the brilliant lyric “Police take your belt, they take your shoestrings. / They take your fingerprints and they give you a warning. / If you wake in the morning, they’ll take your pride.” We’re not just lost and alone in here, we’re screwed out there too.
Circling back to “Apocalypse (for Alan Wilson),” Alan Wilson is a sort of skeleton key for Bart Cameron and his Foghorns. Alan Wilson was the singer and guitarist for the ’60’s acid country band Canned Heat who, before he died at age 27 in 1970, gave us two classic songs, “Going Up Country” and “On the Road Again”, while musically mixing it up with the likes of John Lee Hooker and Son House. Wilson’s an obscure mythical figure, nowhere near as popular as Hendrix or Janis or Jim Morrison, but mythical nonetheless for American musical alchemists and doomed purists who refuse to believe our entire cultural legacy adds up to Rock Star artifice and the self-consuming nostalgia factory at the end of history. Wilson wrote a Master’s thesis on Charlie Patton, hung around John Fahey and reportedly coaxed Son House out of retirement, teaching him his own songs to help him record Father of the Delta Blues in 1965. He was the real deal who did real things of beauty and substance. All is not doomed, there’s a light to search out in what might feel like utter darkness.
When you hear the dogs and they are screaming
And the trees they’re starting to burn
And if you’ve had enough of this Earth you feel like leaving.
Turn to the moon.
I’ll turn to you.
Turn to the moon.
Who am I kidding? If you’re reading this you’ll be there on Friday night at the Sunset Tavern when the Foghorns headline a show with Sam Russell and his Harborrats along with Casey Ruff and the Mayors of Ballard. Follow that up with the Ball of Wax Volume 68 release show on Saturday at Cafe Racer and your Cascadian weekend will be one for the ages.
