Califone - Heron King Blues
(Thrill Jockey)
Califone plays regular music, they've got some guitars and some drums, some singing, too. There are recognizable rhythmic patterns, discernable melodies, and comprehensible structure. But none of this matters much. It doesn't matter because what makes these commonplace elements work on such an incredible level has to do with the more ethereal aspects of their music. What makes it work is the texture, the atmosphere, the gaping black space out of which the music rises like steam out of loamy soil.
King Heron Bird was inspired by reoccurring dreams and druid myths, which is appropriate as the album has the feel of being both ancient and subconscious. "Trickbird" and "Sawtooth Sung a Cheater's Song" are both built upon bedrocks of densely layered percussion that clatter down from the dusty attic of your id and rattle around your brain. They play like a Frakenstein's monster built out of Tom Waits' clatter and Wilco's studio experiments. "Trickbird" couples this with a lush melody, and vocal harmonies. "Sawtooth" works it up with deceptively laidback folksiness—front porch banjos and slide guitars give way to an undercurrent of dark squall, voices and machines, like some kind of primitive technological rite.
The real business, however, is in the fifteen-minute title track, an incredible epic of dark swamp blues. The guitars creak and grumble. The rhythms stumble and stomp. It's a masterpiece of studio work as it's as intricately constructed as any of the other pieces, yet doesn't have the feel of being made up of bits dropped in here and there. King Heron Bird, both in its parts and as a whole, is beguiling piece of work. It's full of mystery and hidden surprises, some things waiting to be discovered, and many being held just out of view.
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