Sat amidst the shadow play and mirage of sun dappled decking, under a vast canopy of gently tumbling, early autumnal leaves –the late summer sun beats down and this latest offering from Bird People has me drifting on a sea of tranquillity and is quite possibly the most beautiful collection of songs, soundscape and sentiment anyone is likely to hear this year. It’s meditative, reflective, uplifting and melancholic – striking a chord right at the core of what makes us human; it’s an honest, personal and peaceable album of outstanding and natural beauty.
Some of the song titles here and especially the artwork, do put me in mind of MV & EE’s The Ground Ain’t Dirty, with the very stylized doodling of Woods frontman and Woodsist / Fuck It Tapes head honcho Jeremy Earl. A simple sketch, it depicts a wheel of stars in an all-encompassing night sky. A one dimensional all-night light trail. It could even be cupid’s arrow, aiming straight at the centre of the universe.
Where long, repetitive, tonal pieces are normally earmarked for album closers, Bird People opt for the 12 minute The Lunar Ship Steers With The Tide as their opening track, and it sets the tone for the 7 track album beautifully – not because it’s a total reflection of what the album has to offer but because it very cleverly draws the listener in, hypnotizing from the outset with a great mix of deep mantric tones, delicate finger picking and spacial walls of white noise. There are many influential styles at work here, from neo-folk, acoustic blues to space & krautrock and it all blends into a superb piece of sprawling drift.
Buck Moon quickly changes it up. A beautiful, folky, acoustic blues number with Uli’s vocal cutting through the void to melt your heart like a hot knife gently cutting through a slab of butter. It feels warm, safe, reassuring – and as night begins to form in the back of my mind, I’m wrapped in a blackening blanket of dazzling deep blue stars – feeling at peace and at one with the surrounding world.
The electrified, rich tones of the guitar work on Cave Of Unthinking Breakdown puts me in mind of the Tom Carter / Marc Orleans Eleven Twenty-Nine project (and why not?) Uli / Feathered Coyote Records have been busy on a Tom Carter benefit compilation this year so it’s bound to have manifested itself elsewhere.
Chasing the dragon through hashish lands with peace pipes a plenty, the pace changes yet again for the next two tracks with the vibe being firmly rooted in the hushed haze of smokey vocals and reverb laden krauty fretwork. Seasalt and Ashes is especially dirty – 8 minutes of upbeat psychedelic magic – not afraid either of mind controlling you and subliminally steering you to get your freak on and go shake your moneymaker in the corner of a room somewhere? The equally pleasing Onward Through The Electric Vale hints at more of the same, marking the albums halfway point and injecting a little more adrenaline into the eclectic, laid back set.
Gather Your Bones (Blues For Mama Moon) has some great rhythm banjo and slide guitar work to slow the pace back to that of a sleeping butterfly and album closer Thundermoon Raga more than lives up to its bold name, stoking up the amplified heart once again – the feedback hum of amp stacks being as tangible a feeling as though standing in the very room with Bird People when it was unleashed on the world in all its echoing glory.
Thundermoon Raga pays homage perfectly to the varied mix of eclectic styles displayed throughout A Pulse In The Void / Sky Huntress and to the wider community of neo-folk contemporaries with which Bird People are at the very heart of. More people should DIG Bird People. Be one of those people.
