The Blithe Sons - Rooms (Chocolate Monk, 2004)

1		Room One (27:38)
2		Room Two (2:58)

The third Blithe Sons album is a CDR released by Chocolate Monk. It's largely a single live recording from a performance in Sacramento, CA. The live track, "Room One," is just over 27 minutes long. It begins with a buzzing drone, which gives way after 10 minutes to the shimmery pluck of a stringed instrument (bouzouki perhaps?), only to succumb to screeches and bowed hums. In the last few minutes an electric guitar comes in, meandering between two chords. Glenn's voice soon joins in and the drones fade for a few minutes. In the background, Loren Chasse plays very subtle percussion on a cymbal before building up a minimal droning pulse. The CD is rounded out by a 3-minute song, "Rooms Two," which was recorded someplace called "The Sun Room." It's a nice folk song with fuzzy acoustic guitar and organ, which plays well off of the epic and largely blissed-out first track.
FakeJazz

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Glassine - Birds Are The Life Of The Sky 1995-1997 (Jewelled Antler, 2001)

** sorry no cover art **

1 Lyca
2 Above The Wings Is Heaven
3 Orchard
4 Birds Are The Life Of The Sky
5 Kingfisher
6 Dust Is Falling
7 White Sands
8 Blight
9 Doorways

Pre-Jewelled Antler project of Glenn Donaldson

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Horticultural Compass - The Apparition Of Bees (Jewelled Antler, 2005)

1 Plant Navigations, Part I
2 Moss Urn
3 The Primeval Glaze
4 Trilobites
5 The Grasslands
6 Plant Navigations, Part II

A friend of mine recently said that he actually has been enjoying some of the Jewelled Antler side-projects even more than some of the 'main' stuff recently. I am not really sure I agree on that, but what such a statement proves is that this loosely knit group of San Francisco-based musicians continues to be able to churn out exceptional music at the drop of a coin into a hat.

In the shape of Horticultural Compass (Samara Dun, Rob Reger, Donovan Quinn, Buffy Vice Sick & Glenn Donaldson) we get ceremonies of celebratory string massage, layered field recordings, swirling drones, beautifully plucked guitar plus the regular myriad of exotic instrumentation. The Apparition of Bees sounds distinctively Jewelled Antlerish but still quite unlike the other combos I?ve been fortunate to treat my ears with. Sometimes they border the haunting realms of Thuja?s improvised music, in others we get a glimpse of the Franciscan Hobbies? caterpillars of majestic oak beauty and at the most melodious and structured we get to experience a similar kind of slightly bent, mellow organic psychedelia as Glenn Donaldson does under his various tree monikers.

There's a loose and highly improvised approach to drones and quietly tinkling noise present here, and what makes it work so successfully is that the band just lets things wander wherever it?s natural to go next. I wouldn?t yet place this dark, slowly unfolding aural mystery up there with the best work of Thuja or the Franciscan Hobbies, but I wouldn?t be surprised if that has changed the next time we get to hear these guys.
Foxy Digitalis

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The Franciscan Hobbies- At The World's End (PseudoArcana, 2002)

1 Omens From Birds (4:36)
2 Centaur Envy (3:46)
3 The Black Chimes (4:34)
4 Seekers In Darkness (3:31)
5 The Unicorn Murders (6:24)
6 False-Hearted Love (7:43)
7 Echippus (0:43)
8 Table Of Figures (2:53)
9 Secret Of The Rose Window (5:10)

Le collectif Jewelled Antler sous une des ses incarnations les plus free...

The Franciscan Hobbies are one of the more anarchistic manifestations of the Jewelled Antler 'collective', The Hobbies themselves being a free-form, free-wheeling group of variable membership that turns idyllic nature excursions into documents of magical, improv folk psych. At The World's End comes by way of New Zealand cd-r label PseudoArcana, and this time around The Hobbies include 3 of the 4 members of Thuja, plus a bunch of their friends, including Donovan Quinn (Skygreen Leopards), Greg Bianchini (The Muons), and Cole Palme (Factrix). However, whoever's present on this recording isn't all that important, as they meld into a very relaxed communal music-making clan. Furthermore, discussion of instruments and techniques would seemingly convey less of a sense of what the Hobbies sound like than more poetic allusions to damp moss and dry leaves. Imagine napping in the undergrowth of a forest, dreaming drones and fractured melodies. Theirs is a drifting, indirect music, more hints and haunts than songs per se. And, we ask, how can you not love a record with a track entitled "The Unicorn Murders"??
Aquarius Records

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The Buried Civilizations - Tunnels To Other Chambers (267 lattajjaa / Jewelled Antler, 2004)

1 Earthen Jars (0:17)
2 As Cold As The Clay (2:44)
3 Long Since Buried (0:14)
4 Moss Banjo (1:46)
5 Eastern Alluvial Plains (2:19)
6 Gallery Of Ancient Birds (3:40)
7 A Port In Sacred Waters (1:42)
8 Ostrich Eggs (0:58)
9 The Long Voyage From Sea To Sea (5:26)
10 People Of The Land (1:01)
11 The Transient Lakes (2:13)
12 Lily Of The Hills (2:31)
13 Ghosts In The Tunnel (4:04)
14 Vacation Route For Emperors (5:12)

folk rituelleet seulement à moitié structurée...

The Buried Civilizations are Kerry McLaughlin & Glenn Donaldson with Christina Boepple (tracks 5, 8, 10 & 13) and Rob Reger (track 9).
recorded at true cross & the church basement. mixed/mastered by gd at true cross.

"The Buried Civilizations perform strange Summerian liturgical music, perhaps found in the listening room in the ancient library at Alexandria or in a crumbling turret in Old Germany. Mysterious but semi-structured song-forms emerge from organ, guitar, flute, banjo & vocal explorations."
267 lattajjaa

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The Blithe Sons - We Walk The Young Earth (Family Vineyard, 2003)

1 The Book Of Names (10:45)
2 Green Patterns (7:25)
3 All Children´s Faces Looking Upwards (11:28)
4 The Oldest Living Things (18:04)
5 We Walk The Young Earth (5:16)

"We Walk The Young Earth" commence de manière presque anodine : une guitare sèche, économe, égrène quelques notes. A peine une mélodie. Une voix blanche en fait pourtant son lit, et vient s’y poser délicatement. De loin, on dirait du post rock joué par des lucioles aphones. De près aussi, d’ailleurs. C’est beau comme un matin sans train en banlieue parisienne. La lumière encore rasante donne des tons ocres à cette gare que vous ne vous rappeliez pas si belle, et les oiseaux profitent de cette accalmie bienvenue pour redoubler d’ardeur et chanter comme jamais. En votre for intérieur, vous vous donnez encore quelques minutes de bienheureuse oisiveté, à feindre sur le quai maintenant ensoleillé un train qui, vous l’espérez, n’arrivera jamais. Mais déjà, les rails se mettent à gémir. C’est imperceptible, mais on distingue cependant avec une aisance étonnante des bouquets d’harmonies suraiguës qui, peu à peu, envahissent l’espace sonore. Alors on se résigne à monter dans le wagon déjà bondé qui va sans doute arriver. Mais aucun train ne se présente. Le bruit a beau s’amplifier, devenir de plus en plus confus, de plus en plus inquiétant, nulle locomotive à l’horizon. Pourtant ça grince maintenant à tout va. Ce n’est pas très fort, mais c’est indéniablement présent. Pour un peu, on jurerait que l’apocalypse est en marche. A moins qu’une improbable bataille ai lieu quelque part sous terre. Et puis, enfin, vous ouvrez les yeux. Vous ne savez pas depuis combien de temps vous vous êtes assoupi. Vous vous levez, vous dirigez vers la chaine stéréo et appuyez de nouveau sur "Play". "The Book Of Names", premier morceau de l’album des Blithe Sons, entonne sa lente psalmodie. Vous vous rallongez dans le canapé. C’est reparti. Bon voyage.
Popnews

The Blithe Sons’ third release (and first for the Family Vineyard label) is a sublime and focused extension of Glen Donaldson and Loren Chasse’s work within the San Francisco-based musical collective called Jewelled Antler. Recorded out of doors in a WWII-era bunker (Marin Headlands, California) and under a bridge (in San Gregorio, California), We Walk The Young Earth finds this duo very comfortable in these odd confines. Using landscape as instrument, they fuse the ambient sounds of nature into a ringing, chiming minimalist drone that evokes both modern classical and emotive folk-rock.

Donaldson and Chasse are the principal masterminds behind Jewelled Antler, a belt-loosening body of creativity. As both an aesthetic approach to sound creation and a CD-R based label, Jewelled Antler’s members are a handful of like-minded musicians whose imaginative gestalt is embedded in the axis of collateral improvisation, distilled and concentrated via their many shared projects. Be it Chasse and Donaldson in Thuja, Donaldson’s Mirza or Birdtree, Chasse and Jason Honea in Child Readers, or the other collective’s participants Steven R. Smith and Rob Reger, these multi-instrumentalists are becoming a formidable extended family of musical exchange artists. Sharing and influencing one another along the way, they are creating a burgeoning catalog of highly inventive sound recordings that draw from personal interaction with the environment, European and American folk, traditional ethnic music, psychedelic rock, and minimalism.

Blithe Sons releases have experimented with outdoor recording before. The band’s last full-length, Waves of Grass, released as a CD-R on the Collective’s own imprint, shares a permeable membrane with the out of doors, welcoming nature’s whimsy as a sonic interloper. Often, the elements are allowed to compete with warbling organ drones and loping guitar static.

On We Walk The Young The Earth, the Blithe Sons assuredly weave gentle guitar drone and barely audible percussive clatter into a sound semblance of dawn creeping over some distant horizon: tentative, yearning, hesitant, but inevitable and warm. Employing acoustic guitar, harmonium, bells, banjo, pipes, and battery-powered keyboard, a plaintive voice seeps into the emergent live improv bleat; the album’s five tracks create landscapes with quietude and supple pulse.

The natural world is a fundamental and recurring theme that cuts across the spectrum of the Jewelled Antler collective’s work, from the collage artwork of each CD-R through the unique recording methods and communion with the surrounding environs. This sincere and curious approach distinguishes Donaldson and Chasse on We Walk The Young Earth.
Dusted Review

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The Blithe Sons - Dirt And Clouds (Jewelled Antler, 2000)

1 Essence And The End
2 The Black Kite
3 Crescent-Shaped Sails
4 Breath's Burial
5 Apparition Crown
6 Negative Clouds
7 The War Ghost
8 Dustward
9 Granite And Cypress
10 Calamus Parade
11 The Broken Pillar
12 The Flying Maze
13 Wood And Wire
14 Choros
15 The Falling Of The Grain

Première réalisation des Blith Sons qui puise ses racines dans le folk psychédélique anglais, la guitare de Glenn Donaldson sert de fil, tandis que le travail de production de Loren Chasse rend ces morceaux mélancoliques et extrêment intimes....

Loren Chasse, proud owner of a brand new cd-burner, began the Jewelled Antler label as an outlet to release small cd-r pressings of a variety of warbled psychedelic projects that have spun-off from his bands Thuja and Knit Separates. The Blithe Sons is the first such release, featuring Chasse and Glenn Donaldson (from Mirza as well as Thuja / Knit Separates). Despite hailing from San Francisco, Chasse and Donaldson have tapped into a vein of melancholic UK psychedelia which runs from the Wicker Man soundtrack through to the early instrumentals of Eyeless In Gaza and the pensive sounds of Richard Youngs. While Donaldson's expressive guitar lines are central to the Blithe Sons arrangements, the album's uniqueness is found in the production work which often positions the quiet instrumentation in the pronounced foreground making the songs so intimate, as to seem played right inside your ears... or brings in some quite textural noises (very common to Chasse's solo sound investigations and manipulated field recordings) as a 'duet' with the melodic lines of the guitar. Very nice work! Based on this, the next Blithe Sons release deserves be a "real" cd release on a proper label (although the musical quality, beautiful packaging and reasonable price of this release shows that cd-r labels are sometimes quite worthwhile).
Aquarius Records

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The Birdtree - Orchards & Caravans (Last Visible Dog, 2003 reissue)

1 White Sundials Faced The Sun
2 Pillar Of Clouds
3 Animals Of The Summit
4 Red Midnight Raven
5 The Marsh
6 Black Rainbows, Part 1 & 2
7 Everyone Of Us A New Leaf
8 Mary Ann
9 Scorpions & Lions
10 The Bluish Vapor Of Tall Eucalyptus Trees
11 The Lost Sun
12 Raven Returns/The Uppermost Forest
13 Sleeper Under A Tree
14 Leaffish

Réédition par Last Visible Dog d'un CDr réalisé par Jewelled Antler. Cet album regroupe 14 compositions acid-folk de Glenn Donaldson, construites autour de délicates mélodies de guitare et de vocaux inspirés, on peut également y entendre field recordings, bouzouki, harmonium, wurlitzer, banjo, claviers, accordéon, cloches, etc... combinant expérimentation, folk et drones...

The field recordings that map The Birdtree's recent pilgrimage into Audubon territory chart a deep-woods atmosphere illuminated solely by the fleeting pulses and fades of filtered sunlight that drift across a sandy forest floor. Originally released as a Jewelled Antler Collective CD-R and now reissued as a CD proper by Last Visible Dog, Orchards & Caravans corrals fourteen of Glenn Donaldson's ethereal acid-folk compositions; it's the San Francisco shaman's strongest concoction to date, ranking with classic releases by such disparate but aesthetically connected groups as Ghost, Flying Saucer Attack, and International Harvester.

Much like his more droning work with Loren Chasse as The Blithe Sons, Orchards & Caravans takes flight around delicate guitar melodies and pensive vocalizations, incorporating bowed oud, bells, toy accordion, Wurlitzer, harmonium, bouzouki, banjo, keyboards, and occasional drumming. Packaged in a highly saturated collage of birds and butterflies, a gaping Venus flytrap, distant trees, prehistoric flora, and the half-human birds found often in Egyptian mythology, the album combines experimental instrumentals, magisterial folk, and lengthy drones.

Evoking the delicate dance of pine needles when they catch a breeze and disappear over a horizon line, "White Sundials Faced the Sun" is a segment of subdued Loren Mazzacane-esque guitar noodle: Maintaining a slow-drip tempo, the carefully spaced guitar strums are held together with fragile vocal sighs. Assuming the properties of its title, "Pillar of Clouds" is a shimmering Middle-Eastern drone punctured with bells and the plucks and strums of various stringed instruments. The darkest excursion on the record, "The Marsh" mucks Goosewind-styled noise with scuttling contusions that build to a distant drone; overlaid with birds, wind and hisses, the manmade sounds ultimately consume the silvan calls of its backdrop.

Surprisingly poppy at times, Donaldson goes beyond these incidental bits, managing also to pen some solid folk hooks. In his hands (and without Bob Dylan's backup singers), the traditional "Mary Ann" emerges wrapped in hoarfrost, a stark ballad whittled to the high-gloss atmospherics of Galaxie 500. Hopelessly catchy, and perhaps Donaldson's most straightforwardly appealing song to date, "Everyone of Us a New Leaf" features rattling drums by Steven R. Smith, a minimal organ line, talk of ghosts, and a distant vocal intonation most reminiscent of Black Heart Procession.

Like Ben Chasny during his most patient work as Six Organs of Admittance, Donaldson is also adept at incorporating loose structures that allow for the creation of songs within songs and asymmetrical pieces that sprout into unexpected directions. Unlike its dreary name, "Black Rainbows, Part 1 & 2" is the acid folk cousin of The Temptations' "My Girl"; halfway through, the sweetness uncoils into a fractured organ rumble, a distant thunder or grayscale prism. Moving in an opposite direction, "The Lost Sun" emerges amid a noisy flight pattern but gives way to poignant strains of melodic guitar, half-shaken jingle bells, a lost war, and a lost sun. Here, the jangling instrumentation contrasts with the track's ingrained melancholy.

I've looked for holes in the armor but Donaldson's too fastidious. Prior to this, he came closest to reaching these heights on The Blithe Sons' We Walk the Young Earth. Here, though, he manages to top that effort, distilling the best attributes of his naturalist psych and patiently building a fully realized dreaming hill, something that fellow Terrastock travelers, in even their most transcendent work, have only been able to hint at.

PitchforkMedia

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Flying Canyon - Flying Canyon (Soft Abuse, 2006)

1 In The Reflection (2:55)
2 Down To Summer (4:38)
3 Crossing By Your Star (2:46)
4 The Bull Who Knew The Ring (3:12)
5 The Dawn Curtain (2:53)
6 Relover (3:24)
7 Gibraltar May Fall (2:25)
8 This Can´t Be My Home (3:37)
9 At Night When The World Goes Quiet (5:49)
10 Black April (3:20)

The Birdtree, The Ivytree, The Blithe Sons, The Franciscan Hobbies... les aventures folk des membres du Jewelled Antler ont pris de multiples identités, notamment sous l'impulsion de Loren Chasse et Glenn Donaldson, sans jamais dévier d'un niveau de beauté et d'apparente simplicité que bien des songwriters de renom peinent à égaler.

Flying Canyon n'est pas directement un projet du collectif, malgré la participation active de Donaldson (percussions, enregistrement, mixage...), mais plutôt la concrétisation des productions de Cayce Lindner, dans un esprit et une communauté de ton bien reconnaissable. Plongé dans l'écho, enregistré à la maison, avec des formats de chansons très courts, l'album écrit par Lindner, déjà à l'origine des superbes disques de The Golden Hotel, est une demi-heure parfaite, fragile, dans le plus pur style du collectif. L'accent est mis sur un son granuleux, aérien, qu'on peine encore à qualifier de lo-fi, soutenant le talent d'auteur de Lindner, proprement époustouflant, et mis en valeur avec un goût irréprochable par Donaldson, qui y rajoute quelques gouttes de clavier, banjo ou piano. Ce qui diffère peut-être le plus Flying Canyon des disques de The Ivytree, par exemple, ou du Giant Skyflower Band, c'est la noirceur générale, l'ambiance très sombre, quoique toujours très poétique, du disque. Une tristesse d'autant plus difficile à apprécier d'une manière uniquement esthétique lorsque l'on sait que Lindner est décédé en février dernier. Le disque n'en devient que plus redoutable encore dans sa beauté. Une perte d'autant plus amère, donc, que Flying Canyon est l'un des enregistrements les plus splendides du Jewelled Antler. Rare.

Webzine Mille Feuilles

The cover of Flying Canyon’s self-titled debut, at first glance, suggests the title “California doom folk” to which they attach their music: cumulonimbus stretch beyond the frame below, exposing the deep blue of sky above and beyond with just a hint of sunlight spread too thin through the ozone, upon which the brooding image of a bearded Norseman is superimposed. From this introduction, one would expect a far-darker sound than the high-altitude that this album reaches. In fact, the imagery takes on entirely converse meaning as Flying Canyon rarely dip below the stratosphere, instead coasting above and between the clouds, be they thick or thin.

The phantom in the photo is Cayce Lindner, who guides by voice, picks and strums - and who in turn is supported by Shayde Sartin and Glenn Donaldson (both of The Skygreen Leopards) who buzz and pound, respectively. Like a clear day atop a mountain, the music is warming from an angle, yet chilling in the movement of thin air. Inhaling some vintage California, the boys do well to recall their influences without recalling a note: an early dedication to their forefathers (CSN&Y, Eagles above; spookier types below), “In the Reflection” opens the album with booming percussion ushering-in a warm, fuzzy bass line and humble acoustic strumming. Lindner’s voice is alternately bold and reluctant, breaking from the sing-along verses to the wounded chorus. Despite the regular back-up from Donaldson, Lindner’s voice is alone through all his songs, distanced from the spacious bass and beat, and even a little estranged from his own ambling guitar. Slight instrumental adjustments from song to song refresh the album with each track, with highlights plenty. “Down the Summer” exchanges percussion for the subtlety of flute, wafting the gentle tune higher and higher with each note. “Relover” features the creep of a nicely veiled, bubbly organ over dueling acoustic guitars and cloudbursts of bass and drums. Even at its biggest, the band maintains sparseness and melancholy. Though the last track “At Night When the World Goes Quiet” is a nice send-off of day-dreamy slide-guitar ushered off with a brief piece of poetry, unlisted track (“hidden” – really?) “Black April” is the more emotive song, though not necessarily a logical conclusion, ending the album back in the midst of the darkest clouds with no upward orientation. For this retraction, the (fantastic) track plays like a cover (is it?), misplaced at the end of the flight.

Indeed, Flying Canyon are sharpest when at their most melancholy, gloomiest - alright, doomiest – but I refuse doom folk as a label too narrow to capture the spirit of atmosphere that the band conjures through this album. Whatever, this is a great daytime CD - the kind you play right when you wake up, and again in the early afternoon when you’ve done little but drift in between. Very nice.
Animal Psi

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Mirza - Anandromous (Darla Records, 1997)

1 Dream Of The Fossil Sea (13:49)
2 Aphasia (4:42)
3 Bless This Gathering (10:28)
4 These Are Our Last Days (9:59)

Psychédélisme instrumental et fantomatique...

Mirza, which means "royalty" in Persian, are a San Francisco quartet who play ghostly instrumental psychedelic sounds. This is their debut. It's like Magic Hour or Bardo Pond, if either of the aforementioned were from India. Perhaps they are the paisley side Rodan never had. The music is like lying on the grass in Golden Gate Park & watching the sun filter through the big evergreens while Jefferson Airplane blast away at an electric love raga with Ravi Shankar.
Recorded by Tim Green (The Champs, Nation of Ulysses). Group member Steve R. Smith releases solo material as well (Darla, Autopia, 3 Acre Floor)

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The Jewelled Antler Library Book 1 and 2 (Porter Records, 2008)

Book One
Green Laughter
1-1 Loren Chasse Green Laughter (18:11)
1-2 Loren Chasse Footpath 1 (1:02)

The Dreadful Gift
1-3 Tomes Part 1 (10:04)
1-4 Tomes Part 2 (10:38)
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1-5 Loren Chasse Footpath 2 (1:11)
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The Sun Is The Lamp
1-6 The Ivytree The Withering Year (2:53)
1-7 Ivytree Inner Groves (6:13)
1-8 The Ivytree White Sun (5:41)
1-9 The Ivytree Lake Of Fire (3:29)
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1-10 Loren Chasse Footpath 3 (0:47)
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Karst E.P.
1-11 Hala Strana Cutting Durmast (3:13)
1-12 Hala Strana Karst (5:12)
1-13 Hala Strana Sztajer (Trad. Polish) (3:13)
1-14 Hala Strana Cantecul Miresei (Trad. Romanian) (3:08)
1-15 Hala Strana Nettles (3:14)

Book Two
Their Feet Are The Foraging Ground Of Wolves
2-1 Dead Raven Choir Night Scene (8:29)
2-2 Dead Raven Choir The Horn's Sound In The Wood ... (5:45)
2-3 Dead Raven Choir The Shepherd's Hour (6:50)
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2-4 Loren Chasse Footpath 4 (2:01)
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Silvery Branches
2-5 The Famous Boating Party White Butterfly (3:37)
2-6 The Famous Boating Party The Orange Bears (3:36)
2-7 The Famous Boating Party Albion Moonlight (3:37)
2-8 The Famous Boating Party The Great Sled-Makers (3:20)
2-9 The Famous Boating Party The Deer Is Humble (2:40)
2-10 The Famous Boating Party Follies Of Summer (2:33)
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2-11 Loren Chasse Footpath 5 (1:27)
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Zwuij
2-12 Uton Zwuij 1 (5:35)
2-13 Uton Zwuij 2 (8:06)
2-14 Uton Zwuij 3 (5:29)
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2-15 Loren Chasse Footpath 6 (0:37)

réédition des douze volumes de la Jewelled Antler Library plus le CDR limité de The Ways of God to Man et des fields recordings de Loren Chasse.... Pour les amoureux de folk étrange....

With 13 groups, 59 tracks and over 4 hours and 40 minutes of music and sounds, the Jewelled Antler Library 4 CD box-set brings together experimental music from the U.S., Finland and New Zealand that ranges from psychedelic, abstract drone, soft psych, noise, folk and field recordings, to the outright strange and bizarre. Four CDs that collect together the entire 12 volume set of the limited edition Jewelled Antler CD-R Library, plus the limited edition recording of The Ways of God to Man and also 12 new field recordings by Loren Chasse. Musicians include: Fursaxa, Uton, Loren Chasse, Tomes, The Ivytree, Hala Strana, Dead Raven Choir, The Famous Boating Party, Claypipe, Muons, Thuja, Kemialliset Ystavat, The Ways of God to Man. This is a 1000 limited edition box-set. The box-set is made of chip board stock with the Jewelled Antler logo debossed in metal foil, includes 14 heavy stock panels with original artwork, CD faces have printed photos by Loren Chasse.
Porter Records

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The Once & Future Herds - Lion-Colored Hills (Pseudo Arcana, 2005)

Locust Parade (0:52)
Ranch Rags (7:09)
Who Will Weep For The Sparrow? (1:41)
Wild Blue Air (4:42)
New Hills (3:38)

To feel the sun, you must leave your home. To taste the sun, you must leave your mind. The Once & Future Herds are another tree in the Jewelled Antler forest. Comprised of Glenn Donaldson, Donovan Quinn, and Loren Chasse, the Herds run rampant in fields of bluegrass while spelunking through golden caves. Organic acoustic instruments are strummed and plucked with branches and twigs while the merrymen dance around, praying for God to bring rain to their tongue. "Ranch Raga" is an appropriately titled hypnotic dirt affair. One can just see a group of gnomes sitting on a porch in Montana, playing music, whimsically singing as their horses graze the green fields. Chasse contributes some of his trademark percussion, using whatever natural elements could be found. He could be rattling a bag of bones for all I know, it's all a part of these ritualistic passages. Masked men serenade dancing women, arming them with hope for a new dawn on "Wild Blue Air." Donaldson's falsetto follows his bouzouki on this journey, while rustic violin scratches tow the line. The Once & Future Herds aren't dead or alive, they are feasting on the land like those that came before them. Another Jewelled Antler gem.

Brad Rose, Foxy Digitalis

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