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The best of the new records is one that is now getting a little older, the debut album from Steven R. Smith's project Hala Strana. It was released last year on the Emperor Jones label to relatively little fanfare. It is the culmination of Steven's solo recordings and his involvement with the whole Jewelled Antler collective. It beautifully combines old world traditionals with modern ideas and presentation. A Moravian traditional, "Jede Forman Dolinu" is transformed into a sweeping epic. Steven also offers his own songs that easily blend with the two traditionals he has re-recorded. For example, "Streets of Raised Platforms," (the album's best track) or "Cinnamon Shops" could easily have been old world folk for all I can tell. Several tracks escalate into outright bombast thanks to an unrestrained electric guitar and drums. If Godspeed You Black Emperor were a chamber orchestra playing the soundtrack to the apocalypse, Hala Strana occasionally assumes the guise of an Eastern European folk band playing their version. "A Second Fall" and "Spiring Plume" reach frenzied crescendos that play perfect counterpoint to languid songs like "Quarter Mesto." When Hala Strana's volume of the Library was released, I thought it was the best thing to have come from Jewelled Antler. This takes that EP and improves on it. Now if we can only get Last Visible Dog to hurry up with the reissue of the insanely limited 2xCD Hala Strana released last year... Thuja have released their fourth full length, All Strange Beasts of the Past, also on Emperor Jones. It finds the Jewelled Antler's flagship band in fine form, summoning the sounds of the Earth around and through them to a whispered cacophony. Track 3 is a bit of a surprise. Instead of the massive drones Thuja has mastered, a song is peeking through! Clear melody comes from an acoustic instrument of some sort, and drums rumble along, guiding the moment. It feels very spontaneous and refreshing. A loose and crumbling track 4 seems to be trying to hold together the sense of structure, while track 5 has degenerated to a single piano searching for a tuneful compliment amid the growing clatter. Like ripples on a lake dying out, the effect of track 3 dies down and by the last two tracks, the dense drones have reestablished their hold. The Blithe Sons' 3 new albums all came out pretty near each other, but there's quite a bit of diversity between them. The first, Green Mansions, released on their own Jewelled Antler label, toes the line between structured semi-songs and dense drones (a la Thuja). Much like last year's We Walk the Young Earth, this album suckers you with a nice, laid back fractured folk song, only to follow it up with an oppressive and long drone. It's a really effective trick, and makes both the melody of "Patio of the Cypresses" and the thick wall of "Stone Door" hit that much harder. It's this relationship between melody and drift and the line between the two that seems to have come to define the whole Jewelled Antler collective, if not specifically The Blithe Sons (though, with a collective this incestuous, there is a lot of overlap on the other bands' records). The song "Moon Ponds" illustrates this really well in shifting from a minimal, barely-there drone into a sweeping and subtle raga. Whenever Glenn plays one of his quiet acoustic guitar parts, I get the sense that he and Dave Pierce (Flying Saucer Attack) have plumbed similar depths of folk's fringes, only Dave uses sheets of feedback and distortion, while the folks in Jewelled Antler use more organic sources. The second Blithe Sons album, Arm of the Starfish has the distinction of being one of few Jewelled Antler releases to be pressed on a real CD, not a CDR. It has been released by Family Vineyard, who released last year's awesome We Walk the Young Earth. The aforementioned trick is used again here, but in reverse. The opening track, "Sparkling Diatoms," settles in for a long and peaceful drone, and after the listener has been lulled into a dream-like state, the sound of waves and a delicate folk song, "Sun Anenome," begins. Rather than imagery relating to forests and trees (which is the standard with Thuja/Blithe Sons records), this one is about the ocean and the creatures thereof. Of the five tracks, 2 are ambient drones, 2 are folk-ish songs, and one falls somewhere between the two splitting the record pretty evenly between the band's two personalities. It captures the feelings of an early childhood visit to the sea and the fascination and magic that the ocean holds. 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. Of is the moniker that Loren Chasse is using for his new CDR, The Infant Paths. To me, he has seemed to be the member of the collective who approaches his contributions more analytically and theoretically than anyone else. This album consists largely of minimal drones. A slowly tapped drum and some clanking stick their heads through the thin sheet of high register drones and extended tones. There's some bowing, and a couple of squeaks and squeals. It's very nice and subdued. CJA is Clayton Noone from New Zealand, who runs a label called Root Don Lonie for Cash (who put out the Blithe Sons' lathe 8"). Zentek is at once very much like the other Jewelled Antler releases and very unique among them. It has a touch of weird electronics interspersed with the rough droning guitar, drums, and hiss. Very minimal, but dramatic and dark without seeming theatrical and affected. Track 3, "Blackmas," is easily the most "rocking" any Jewelled Antler release has gotten (distorted guitar, drums, etc). Track 4 is basically just gravelly wind sounds. I don't know why I like that so much, but I do. It's 20 minutes long, and it seems to fly by. The seemingly unstoppable Jewelled Antler Collective has once again delivered several great albums. Nearly every one of these bands' releases seems to build upon the strengths of the previous. Which means that once again, I'm saying that these are the best they've done yet.
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