It’s getting late, the sun is lowering itself behind the canyons and tumble weed is rolling on past your feet in the breeze. Lonely land stretches out in front of you for miles, inhabited only by the distant sound of desert creatures. This is what “West Winds” sounds like, the new full length from Barn Owl member Evan Caminiti…
I first heard Barn Owl upon the Digitalis re-release of “From Our Mouths a Perpetual Light” and I was intrigued by its character. It was a sound I’d never heard before; this strange concoction of blessed out psychedelia with americana-esque guitars and stoner doom style dirge. It was fascinating. Since then I’ve avidly followed them as much as I can, including the solo work. From the fuzzy drone of Elm (Jon Porras) to Evans drone doom. I was hooked. So it came with much excitement that I was able to review the latest solo offering from the Barn Owl camp.
From the opening moments of the first track entitled “Night of the Archon”, I knew I was in for something special. Evans prior outings have always leaned heavily towards the doomier side of drone. There were flickers of folk styling here and there, but generally you were always in for lava spewing axe drones from a forest dwelling demon. With “West Winds” the heavy doom influence is left in the wilderness and a heap of new ideas are showcased. “Westward Son” is a fantastic piano led piece that gives nods to Ennio Morricone and his spaghetti western style, creating visions of a once bustling town now left to rot by bandits. “Glowing Sky” is a spiralling wall of sound piece created with layers of guitars that will appeal to fans of Tim Hecker’s headphone wizardry. The atmosphere of this album is what is most thrilling. Each song is connected by this strange narration depicting imagery of America in the early 1900s. The term Desert Drone springs to my mind several times during the album and is possibly a very accurate description of the tone Evan has channelled into his work. I can’t say I know of any other artists working in the drone field today that have moulded themselves such a concrete identity as Evan has and “West Winds” shows he is still growing.
Fans of his previous solo outings will be pleasantly surprised by the development in both sound and song writing as “West Winds” is Evans strongest work to date. If you are new to his work, this would be the perfect starting point. – Review by Daniel J. Gregory for Fluid Radio
Track List:
1. Night Of The Archon
2. Westward Sun
3. Thunder Breaks The Dawn
4. Dust
5. Glowing Sky
6. Path To The Sea
7. Black Desert Blooming
Sights and sounds by Evan Caminiti (electric and acoustic guitars, harmonium, gong, voice, piano)
Recorded and mixed in San Francisco 2009/2010 at The White Room on Fillmore Street
Mastered by Patrick Klem
Evan Caminiti is a guitarist full of big ideas and even bigger sounds. currently known as one-half of the San Francisco Bay Area avant droners Barn Owl, Caminiti has spent a great deal of time the past few years playing and recording gorgeous solo explorations focused primarily on the guitar, but, when need be, accented by additional instrumentation…
Following several prior releases, Caminiti’s abilities have been honed to the razor sharp point of his new lp, West Winds. Three Lobed Recordings is proud to present this album, Caminiti’s most mature and meditative to date.
West Winds is a discourse on solitude and cosmic exploration set primarily to an open tuned guitar. It is a logical successor to Caminiti’s strong, large(r) scale solo debut, Psychic Mud Shrine (Digitalis, 2009) and calls to mind Roy Montgomery, hex-era earth and popul vuh. the album is the result of Caminiti’s six-month long focus on each song’s form and musical composition. Over that span of time, Caminiti assembled and came to know each song intimately, constructing a series of strong structural bases. That knowledge permitted him to record the final takes accentuated by numerous potent improvisational flourishes as heard on West Winds. This long-form approach of adding chaotic, off-the-cuff elements to such long-crafted tracks is basically the opposite approach to that which is used within the context of Barn Owl. Through its conte
The album opens with the bold and transcendent “night of the archon”. Caminiti coaxes a sustained wash of shimmering tones from his guitar that conjure the impression of heat illusions appearing just over the horizon on a long, straight, and otherwise abandoned road in the dead heat of summer. Hazy and dreamlike, “night…” magically helps the listener lose track of time and space, and its close to nine-minute running time seems like mere moments slipping through the hourglass. Once fully established, this hypnotic tone and mood is so pervasive throughout West Winds – from the piano accents that punctuate “westward sun” to the desolate and lonely echoes of “dust” – that the listener certainly does not have to listen too hard to tell that Caminiti has generated a full and complete thematic exploration that is undoubtedly cut from whole cloth. “Black desert blooming” soundly closes the album in a din of bowed guitar that slowly gives way to sparse, understated notes. Evan Caminiti’s West Winds is a bold and cohesive statement from a young artist already capable of recording greatness.
West Winds is pressed on czech vinyl and housed within a spiffy mutli-colored silkscreen jacket bearing new artwork from Caminiti. The album will be accompanied by a download coupon for DRM-free MP3s of the album. This one will be released on/around (date subject to slight change for the time being) July 1st but copies pre-ordered from Three Lobed will ship as soon as they are on hand. – Three Lobed
