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WEEED, You are the Sky: Opening Doors

weeed you are the sky

There’s a kind of awakening sensation as the guitars hum and howl their way into the suitably titled leadoff track “Opening” on You are the Sky, setting an immediately patient and mild tone across a serene build for six and a half minutes. It’s the sort of move a band might make on a 70-minute album, but the fact that WEEED‘s sixth long-player (released through Halfshell Records) runs a manageable six tracks and 44 minutes and they dedicate six of those to the instrumental introduction demonstrates plainly how much of a priority they’re placing on mood and atmosphere. It is a careful, but natural sound they amass, and the songs that unfold are rich in their variety of arrangement and vibe. The Portland, Oregon-based four/five-piece of guitarist/vocalist Mitchell Fosnaugh, bassist/vocalist Gabriel Seaver and drummers/percussionists John Goodhue and Evan Franz (also synth and piano, respectively) employ Ian Hartley on hand percussion throughout, and along with other synth and vocoder from Fosnaugh and various effects from Seaver, there develops a fluidity between the songs that becomes essential to the overall affect of the record.

It is a deeply organic sound, with shimmering guitar and naturally flowing rhythms, and it’s lent all the more breadth through the percussion and the forward vocal melodies when they apply, almost Americana in style, but not in a way as to make it seem like a put-on, like all of a sudden Fosnaugh or Seaver get in front of a microphone and become cowboys. Far from it, but the vocals do a fair amount of work in complementing the naturalism of the instrumentation surrounding, and as “Opening” gives way to “I See You” and the cymbal washes and chasing, winding guitars of “Where Did You Go?,” leading to a welcome percussion jam at the end, there’s nothing done to pull the listener out of the space that the band has created. It’s immersive, but not through hypnotic repetition. Instead, WEEED simply — or, not simply — present their shifts and changes in a smooth, natural way, and they bring the audience with them wherever they want to go.

Until they don’t, and that’s a special moment too. You are the Sky doesn’t have a centerpiece as such — six tracks means no place for one — but “Open Door” is close enough, and after the rhythmic glee that tops “Where Did You Go?” finishes, it’s a stark turn to the electrified pulsations and vocoder speech repeating the title line that shows not only how far WEEED‘s experimental sensibility is willing to go on this outing, but how much they’re willing to make it a focal point. On a tape or LP, this would be the end of side A, but even listening in a linear format (CD, digital), the effect is striking. There are still guitar lines woven throughout, but they’re a part of a broader ambient moment, as is the hand percussion that emerges. It’s relatively quick at 4:19 — the shortest piece on You are the Sky and certainly less ranging than either “Caramelized” or the closing title-track that follow and both top 10 minutes long — but it’s a crucial moment nonetheless in what it brings to to the album as a whole.

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WEEED have put out now-six albums since 2013, and this is hardly the first experimental tendency they’ve showcased, but true enough to its title, “Open Door” throws out any rulebook by which the band might otherwise have been playing and engages the listener on an entirely different level, so that it’s not just about laid back flow and languid jamming, but this darker take on American krautrock that leads the way into the “closing duo” that consumes nearly half the record’s runtime. It’s almost as if You are the Sky is two mini-albums put together and “Open Door” is a transitional moment between them, but the truth is it’s a standout from any other modus employed elsewhere in these tracks, and especially with where it’s placed among them, that’s very clearly intentional. If it was first or last, you’d almost be able to write it off and say, “Oh, that’s the intro,” etc., but as it is, WEEED put the emphasis on that expansion of palette, and it makes You are the Sky an even more encompassing listen.

Further, it’s worth noting that the shift back toward guitar-based fare is no less smoothly done than, say, the turn from “I See You” to “Where Did You Go?,” and as they unfold a progressive heavy psychedelic blues throughout, “Caramelized,” finding room for scale work on guitar and highlight basslines as well as harmonica in the second half, there’s an underlying urgency of rhythm that not only grounds the exploration, but makes it an exciting and enticing trip. The vocal melodies hold sway and provide a human presence early where “Caramelized” might otherwise lose its way into the jam, but they get there anyhow, and seem happy to go, guitar stepping back in favor of harmonica while the drums hold steady beneath. They build back up into a verse from there and noodle out rather than launch into a crescendo, but the journey is the thing, and it’s a pleasure. “You are the Sky” follows introducing its title line quickly ahead of an intricate bounce that opens to an effectively punctuated groove and a bit of space rock push that seems to grow more distant as the song moves toward its midpoint.

Soon enough, subdued guitar takes hold, the vocals step back into the space created, and everything — everything — calms way down. It’s temporary, but dynamic. A guitar solo spikes the energy, but dissipates and the sound of a wave brings in the next vocal line at the eight-minute mark that acts as the introduction for the final surge that will carry WEEED through the apex and out on a crashing finale. Well earned. You are the Sky feels very much based around the musical conversation happening between the players involved, but neither does it exclude the listener from that as so much material that might otherwise be tagged “progressive” can do. That’s a risk to take, but six albums later, WEEED either consciously know or have an innate sense of what they want to do in terms of songwriting, and that comes across in the realization and structure of the album. It’s a particular kind of gorgeous, not about a lush wash of effects so much as the mindset it inspires and the payoff of those risks taken. Be at peace, if not necessarily peaceful.

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