Visitations - s/t
(self-released)
Visitations is somewhat of a mystery. No, that’s an understatement; they are almost a complete and total mystery. There are minimal facts known about them. They are not The Visitations (erstwhile Elephant 6 collaborator Davey Wrathgabar’s band). They played their first public show in Portland, Maine in August with Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice, Davenport, and Son of Earth. They pressed and self-released the CDR reviewed here. And then they appear to have completely vanished.
The band seems to court obscurity the way countless others would assiduously pursue fame. The packaging reveals no song titles or credits of any kind other than the word “Visitations” written in glue on an insert inside the handmade cover. Its very anonymity contributes to the feeling that this recording could have come from anywhere including the possibility that the whole package was left here as an artifact from visitors to our world.
At its core, Visitations is a concept album. The whole recording plays out like a gospel opera in which the destruction of the world and all of its evils is brought on by the arrival from space of our saviors in flying saucers. It draws on traditions as varied as 1950’s science fiction films, Old English folk minstrels, religious tent revivals, and classic 1960’s psych and weaves the results into a singular and cohesive (if not always coherent) tapestry. The range, scope and mastery of moods that Visitations shows is astonishing for a first release. The disc is paced so well that even the few tracks that clock in at twenty seconds and shorter make sense in context. Which is not to imply that Visitations is a polished work. Hardly.
The recording is almost defiantly lo-fi. Many of the tunes seem to be first takes and missed notes, false starts, and scrambles to find the beat are not uncommon. Since these often come at points of emotional tension in the narrative, the overall musical effect is similar to the skewed visual perspectives employed in sets for expressionist films of the early twentieth century to emphasize the raw mood of the action. Occasionally when the imagery in a song on Visitations is becoming seriously intense, someone cracks up and it seems that the take will have to be sacrificed but then recovery is nearly instantaneous. Just as there is no substitute to experiencing the twisted logic of Visitations first hand, it is hard to describe what kind of genius is at work without traveling through the release song by song.
After a spacey introduction featuring ghostly synthesizer lines overlapped with tape reversed vocals, the record is called to order in a burst of static that immediately charges into the vigorously strummed guitar and chanted sing along of “come with us to the clearing” where “saucers will descend” to “bring about the End.” Voices join in a ragged chorus as the infectious enthusiasm of the gathering gains momentum. The apparent glee of the singers indicates they have no qualms about the grave consequences of the landing. Eventually a lone female voice fervently repeats, “Here comes the lord” until she gasps for breath at the song’s end.
The third track meanders along in a haze of humming, plunky synthesizers and speed shifted voices before dissipating in a shimmer of feedback. Track four starts with a lone plucked guitar playing a simple three-note melody. Into this minimal backing come the repeated words “I know where I’m going when I die”. What follows is a litany of a life lived right (“never looked a stranger in the eye”, “all my life, I’ve never hurt a fly”) that will result in a just reward in the end. By the end of the song, the motto that holier-than-thou types have shrilly proclaimed until it has become a staple of sanctimony has reclaimed its childlike innocence.
The next track gives the first hint as to why the End might just be welcomed. This song starts out with a hesitating guitar, flute, and distorted xylophone. A singer starts laconically, almost half asleep as he describes the catalog of evils found in the Maine woods (pentangles, witches’ covens, scurrying rats, and even Satan the dark goat himself) before warming to his topic with gradually increasing lucidity. By the end of his rant, he has transformed his nasal voice into what Jonathan Richman might sound like as a Pentecostal preacher decrying the wages of sin.
Following this extended freak-out with the stately elegant minimalist chamber folk of the sixth track might seem ridiculous, but in context it is an inspired choice. Next, Visitations employ disorienting experimental tape effects and strummed acoustic guitar reminiscent of Bowie’s Space Oddity. It is this kind of clever reference to existing “space operas” that places Visitations own opera within a grand tradition. So much so that when in the next breath they ask the musical question “would you believe there’s another world?” no one should be shaking their head in dissent. The final crescendo of this song yields one of the disc’s most transcendent moments as all voices reach heavenward in chorus propelled by pounding drums and agitated fervent strumming of guitars.
The next track positions itself as an ode to the great god Pan as the singer intones “there are things that we can’t understand”. Indeed there are. The gentle noodling of the next track inspires a spontaneous outpouring of pre-lingual vocals before disappearing into an organ and guitar coda. The next track is far more focused and melodic and could be a long lost 1960’s psych classic finally unearthed. Its lyrics exhort the Zen-like mantra to “stop resisting and start existing to enter heaven” and that “when we get there, we’ll grow long hair.”
After a brief interlude, a harmonica and acoustic guitar announce a woozy back porch blues. Over the course of the next few tracks, the lyrics become less and less recognizable. The music keens and wobbles and voices moan like dreamlike phantasms, but just to keep us tethered to this plain, strains of “Old McDonald” can be heard in a disembodied female voice. The penultimate track develops as percussion-less, psychedelic glossolalic improv. Voices tumble over one another and are goaded slowly but surely into a frenzy by a cacophony of ghostly effects. One is tempted to take the easy way out and compare the final chaotic crescendo to a demonic possession, but it’s more likely that human language is unequal to the task of transmitting the emotions felt this close to the rapture. Finally the tortured souls are released into a bed of gentle lulling keyboards and chants before the final track ends in what could be a brief backwards-masked chuckle.
Visitations is the type of roller coaster ride whose form echoes the salvation of the story it tells. Its ragged delivery only makes it seem as though the whole tale has been told sitting around a dark fire in the Maine woods. This is music that connects and resonates in a way its more urbane cousins cannot ever hope to. Please Visitations, if you can tear yourselves away from the glory of the cosmos, listen to this plea from Earth and return to us. Even just for another visit.
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