[Click play above to stream Yawning Balch’s Volume Two in its entirety. Album is out tomorrow, Nov. 3, on Heavy Psych Sounds with preorders here for North America and here for Europe.]

Volume Two picks up more or less where earlier 2023’s Volume One (review here) left off, fading in around Bill Stinson‘s drums with an immediately spacious wash of tone, guitarists Gary Arce and Bob Balch setting out intertwining lines of the reverberating, resonant drift that will in no small part define the three-songer’s 42-minute course while bassist Billy Cordell adds melancholia to the melody and fleshes out the punctuation of the toms in the early going of “A Moment Expanded (A Form Constant).” Like its predecessor, Volume Two presents its component material without fanfare.

That fade in is what you get and before you know it, you, the four-piece — which is Bob Balch of Fu Manchu, Sun and Sail Club, Slower, Big Scenic Nowhere (who also have a new one coming), etc., and I think the second-to-latest incarnation of Yawning Man, of course founded by Arce — are fully engrossed in the jam. The spirit of the jam, its fluidity and the trajectory it takes, maybe consciously, maybe not, as it unfurls its extended 18:37 run as both opener and longest track (immediate points), backed in soul and chemistry by “Flesh of the Gods” (9:59) and “Psychic Aloha” (13:36) on side B, which are no less dynamic in their execution.

The narrative of Yawning Balch reminds of old jazz collabs. You get Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in a room together and see what happens; two players of a different style putting themselves in a position to complement and inspire each other. To be sure, Balch and Arce are each their own guitarist, but even more than the work they do together as part of Big Scenic Nowhere, the melding of their methods is highlighted in Yawning Balch in part because of the shape of the pieces themselves. Big Scenic Nowhere is also an expansive heavy psych foursome, and yes, there’s more than a bit in common between the two, but these are jams and those are songs and the intention is distinct.

As one might expect, Yawning Balch also has a fair bit shared aesthetically with Yawning Man at their longformiest, but is apart enough from that too to be its own thing and given its direction in part by Balch‘s post-recording editing and mixing. There won’t be many surprises in Volume Two for anyone those who heard Volume One — the two were tracked at the same time — but if you told me that the ending of “A Moment Expanded (A Form Constant)” was the impetus for releasing these explorations in the first place, I wouldn’t argue with the choice.

I’m pretty sure if Yawning Balch took Volume One and Volume Two and posted them on YouTube as ‘Chill Music to Study (2024)’ or somesuch algorithm-manipulating nonsense, they’d have enough views to make Stoned Jesus blush, but either way, the three inclusions flow within themselves and between each other with a grace made all the more palpable through a relaxed pace. “Flesh of the Gods” is a meditation, fading up around a movement already in progress but with which it’s no struggle to get on board. Cordell being the secret weapon here as bass always is in Yawning Man, the warmth beneath the alternately soaring and noodling guitars isn’t to be understated in the overarching impression Yawning Balch make, never quite mellowed to a point of shoegaze. Maybe looking up instead. Sungazer psychedelia. Don’t look too long or you’ll burn your eyes.

Whether or not they’re communing with immortals, “Flesh of the Gods” unfolds patiently in its atmospheric course, riding its central groove for the duration and marking out its breadth around that. As with the cuts preceding and following, it is gorgeous, and even more than the leadoff, it feels representative of the band’s time in the studio together. One imagines that, as Balch sat down with the recordings, there were a few stretches like “Flesh of the Gods,” which even as the shortest song on Volume Two seems to dig deep into its procession, the wash of effects and lead guitar floating but not completely amorphous with the cycling measures pointed out by the bass and drums.

It might be a test of who gets it and who doesn’t — if you can go with it, “Flesh of the Gods” is easy listening; if you’re the type to lose patience with a group exploring around the same progression for 10 minutes, it’s another story — but the ambience is only inviting, and the last crash and transitional drift into the quiet guitar that starts “Psychic Aloha” is another showcase of the underlying consideration put into how this material, which is about as barebones as you get in terms of traditional songwriting development, but that is nonetheless purposeful and thoughtful in its delivery.

As the final track from the sessions that produced both of the project’s LPs to date — and there may be more to come or not, I don’t know — “Psychic Aloha” is duly serene, with a languid but not lazy beat snapping on the twos and fours while wisps of synth or effects (the latter, likely) push into a kind of cosmic desert wash with a more definitive fuzzy strum arriving after the five-minute mark to anchor and guide the not-quite-a-march-but-neither-just-a-casual-stroll into the ensuing crescendo, which maintains the methodical pace while spreading out across a vaster shimmering wash from the guitar.

True to both the first album and the general expectation going into that and coming out of this — that is, it’s something completely reasonable and I’m not complaining about it; I’m big on tonal clarity in multiple contexts — Yawning Balch and Big Scenic Nowhere share much from having the Arce/Balch collaboration at their root. That’s probably inevitable, especially as both are relatively new (within the last five or six years; less than that here) projects and haven’t yet had the chance to fully manifest the distinctions between them, but already and bolstered further by Volume Two it’s clear that each resides in its own space with its respective goals. How Yawning Balch might develop, if they keep going at all — I’ll argue there’s more to be said (instrumentally) — is a less predictable and more exciting prospect for that, as from the six pieces they’ve thus far unveiled there’s really nowhere that seems off limits.

Yawning Balch, Volume One (2023)

Yawning Man on Facebook

Yawning Man on Bandcamp

Yawning Man website

Big Scenic Nowhere on Facebook

Big ScenicNowhere on Instagram

Big Scenic Nowhere on Bandcamp

Big Scenic Nowhere store

Fu Manchu on Facebook

Fu Manchu on Instagram

Fu Manchu on Bandcamp

PlayThisRiff website

PlayThisRiff on Facebook

PlayThisRiff on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

In the longer term, it probably wouldn’t matter at all, but I’m glad that Yawning Balch — the four-piece union of desert rock forebears Yawning Man and Bob Balch of Fu Manchu among, at this point, a slew of others — are getting their second full-length, Volume Two, out before the end of 2023. Something about the symmetry there, not the least since Volume Two comes from the same jam sessions as Volume One (review here), which arrived just last month. Had they wanted, the band probably could have put the two records together as a 2LP and rolled that out, but this way it’s kind of like the offerings are adjacent, close by each other, but also giving enough space to appreciate where the music goes without being numbed by the hypnotic nature of the work itself.

There’s no audio yet from Volume Two that I’ve been able to find, but if you want to hear what the band is all about, well, the debut is probably a great place to start since (1:) the next album was tracked at the same time and (2:) it’s their only other work to-date. You’ll find that stream at the bottom of the post. Here’s the gorgeous cover art and album info, hoisted from the PR wire. Album’s out Nov. 3:

Heavy Psych Sounds to announce YAWNING BALCH sophomore album VOLUME TWO – presale starts TODAY !!!

– sophomore album of the new desert rock music project feat. Yawning Man and Bob Balch from Fu Manchu –

RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 3rd

Today we are stoked to start the presale of the YAWNING BALCH sophomore album VOLUME TWO !!!

ALBUM PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop.htm#HPS280

USA PRESALE: https://www.heavypsychsounds.com/shop-usa.htm

Bob Balch here. In November of 2022 I went out to Joshua Tree for a day of jamming with the guys in Yawning Man with the intention of calling it “Yawning Balch.” No riffs were planned. We just plugged in and played. The only discussion beforehand was that Gary Arce and I wanted to mess with tons of guitar pedals. I knew that while we were jamming it sounded great, but it wasn’t until I got home and listened to it all that I realized we had something special. It’s hard to believe that we jammed for five hours and got two full length LPs and then some out of it. Every player killed it on these recordings and I’m beyond grateful to have my name involved with this legendary band. Fingers crossed they invite me back out annually for more jam sessions. I hope you enjoy these jams and please use responsibly.

A Moment Expanded (A Form Constant)
This is sort of a parallel piece to “Dreaming with Eyes Open” from Volume One. This is another totally improvised jam like the other songs. Although, I took this one back home and changed my guitar tones a little using different delays and reverbs. The overall piece of music remained the same though.

Flesh Of The Gods
This was actually the first song we tracked during the session. Just getting a feel for how we all played together as a band. I think it turned out awesome considering that. The main melody came quick and like the other tunes this one surfaced easily.

Psychic Aloha
This tune is the only song on the album that features any synth. For that reason there is a lot of different synth sounds as the song progresses. I overdubbed the synth parts after the fact but the other instrumentation remained untouched from the original jam.

RELEASED IN
15 ULTRA LTD TEST PRESS VINYL
100 ULTRA LTD SIDE A – SIDE B GREEN-BLUE-YELLOW VINYL
400 LTD CREAM VINYL
BLACK VINYL
DIGIPAK
DIGITAL

TRACKLIST
1. A Moment Expanded (A Form Constant)
2. Flesh Of The Gods
3. Psychic Aloha

CREDITS
Recorded at Gatos Trail and engineered by Dan Joeright.
Mixed and Mastered by Kent Stump at Crystal Clear Sound.
Artwork and layout by John McGill
Logo by Pia Isaksen

YAWNING BALCH is:
Gary Arce: Guitar
Bob Balch: Guitar, Synth
Billy Cordell: Bass
Bill Stinson: Drums

https://www.facebook.com/yawningmanofficial/
https://yawningman.bandcamp.com
http://www.yawningman.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bigscenicnowhere/
https://www.instagram.com/bigscenicnowhere/
https://bigscenicnowhere.bandcamp.com/releases
https://bigscenicnowherestore.bigcartel.com/

heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/

Yawning Balch, Volume One (2023)

It takes maybe 20 seconds for “Dreaming With Eyes Open” to fade in completely, and by then, the jam is fully dug in. Volume One, released through Heavy Psych Sounds, is the first offering from the unit billed as Yawning Balch, which is comprised of the current lineup of Yawning Man — founding guitarist Gary Arce, as well as bassist Billy Cordell and drummer Bill Stinson — plus guitarist Bob Balch, also known for his work in Fu Manchu, Sun and Sail Club, Minotaur, the ‘PlayThisRiff’ series of instructional guitar videos, and so on. Most relevant to this three-song/42-minute offering, though, is Big Scenic Nowhere, which is the first incarnation of the Arce/Balch collab, that outfit bringing together two of heavy rock’s signature guitarists along with Stinson, Mos Generator‘s Tony Reed, and others, with jamming at their root and songs carved from different pieces of recorded improvisations and parts fit together after the fact to give structure to the material.

And therein lies the difference. While Yawning Balch‘s Volume One — which begins with “Dreaming With Eyes Open” at 21:36 as the longest track/opener (immediate points) before moving into “Cemetery Glitter” (13:52) and “Low Pressure Valley” (7:29) on side B — features some editing, as hinted at by that first fade in, and also the outbound one at the end of the lead piece, the fadeout of “Cemetery Glitter” and the way “Low Pressure Valley” rises from silence to ride off into its own sunset, it is definitively a jam-based release. Recorded by Dan Joeright at Gatos Trail — who helmed the ‘Live in the Mojave Desert’ stream series in 2020/2021 and the Yawning Man album, Long Walk of the Navajo (review here), that Heavy Psych Sounds issued last month — and mixed and mastered by Wo Fat‘s Kent Stump at Crystal Clear Sound in Texas, it harnesses the explorations on which Big Scenic Nowhere material might be based, but shifts intention in documenting those jams as they happened, at least in part. It is the same collaboration in a rawer form.

In Yawning Balch, as in Big Scenic Nowhere, the two guitarists are extraordinarily well suited to each other’s styles. Arce has been jamming in the Californian desert for the better part of the last 40 years, and his playing is open and vibrant with his trademark shimmering melancholia of tone. Balch leans more toward verse/chorus structure in most of his work, but seems in “Dreaming With Eyes Open” to be reveling in the chance to let loose that playing alongside Arce represents. Employing sundry flanges, synth generators, backwards looping, on and on, the first of the three inclusions on Volume One feels broad and spacious because it is, and its 21 minutes are a journey to be undertaken through conscious and tapped-unconscious creativity, Cordell and Stinson holding down fluid movement to help cast the shape of each part before the next arrives.

Lush throughout, with presumably Balch‘s otherworldly swirl turning to a crunchier distortion at 19:31, following and setting a rhythm before taking off on the next solo as it all starts to come down, “Dreaming With Eyes Open” is its own landscape to inhabit. A place to dwell. And it is accordingly emblematic of the thought behind the presentation of the album that “Cemetery Glitter” starts in more immediate fashion; the crash-and-go hits like walking into a room and finding the show already started. For all I know it was recorded five minutes after “Dreaming With Eyes Open,” or before it, but with more forward kick drum and outward reaching tendrils of guitar, a comfortable bassline for the listener to rest on while the light morphs into various shapes above, and some more actively jazzy noodling in its middle, “Cemetery Glitter” has its own persona, distinct from the side-A-consuming piece before it and the shorter capper that follows.

“Low Pressure Valley” keys in on resonance early and resides there for the duration. In the background of the mix, one guitar plays through a largely steady flow of echoing notes while the more forward guitar tops with a bluesy solo, figuring out its way as it goes across the first few minutes after the intro pickup. The closer is serene, even compared to “Dreaming With Eyes Open” or “Cemetery Glitter,” and lives in its groove for what feels like a quick seven minutes in context. That’s long enough, however, to leave an impression once again distinguished from its surroundings, and to let Yawning Balch display the chemistry between the two guitarists and the complementary manner in which they interact. They end on a long-held residual echo, fading it up and out quickly at the finish of “Low Pressure Valley,” like maybe your ears just popped and the music wasn’t real after all.

When the project was announced, Balch described the session: “In November of 2022 I went out to Joshua Tree for a day of jamming with the guys in Yawning Man with the intention of calling it Yawning Balch. No riffs were planned. We just plugged in and played. The only discussion beforehand was that Gary Arce and I wanted to mess with tons of guitar pedals. I knew that while we were jamming it sounded great, but it wasn’t until I got home and listened to it all that I realized we had something special…” That session would end up yielding two full-lengths, with Volume One as the first. And they definitely accomplish that ‘mess with tons of guitar pedals’ part here, basking in the spur-of-the-moment flourish that the sundry effects provide with patience and a largely serene mood as the result.

As to what might be in store for Volume Two (due out I don’t know when), there’s no real mystery. It’s more jams from the same session. Yawning Balch don’t need to be cagey about what they’re doing. They’re jamming. Whether this will be an ongoing band apart from Yawning Man and Arce and Balch‘s others, it’s hard to know and I wouldn’t hazard a guess even before you get to the logistics of trying to schedule getting together around tours and whatnot. Given that, it seems all the more fortunate that (1:) these jams were recorded at all, because sessions like this aren’t always put to tape, and (2:) there’s more coming. But whether one knows Yawning Man, or Fu Manchu, or Big Scenic Nowhere or any of the other acts in these players’ respective orbits, Yawning Balch offers a new and in some ways deeper view of its core collaboration.

Yawning Balch, Volume One (2023)

Yawning Man on Facebook

Yawning Man on Bandcamp

Yawning Man website

Big Scenic Nowhere on Facebook

Big ScenicNowhere on Instagram

Big Scenic Nowhere on Bandcamp

Big Scenic Nowhere store

Fu Manchu on Facebook

Fu Manchu on Instagram

Fu Manchu on Bandcamp

PlayThisRiff website

PlayThisRiff on Facebook

PlayThisRiff on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Facebook

Heavy Psych Sounds on Instagram

Heavy Psych Sounds on Bandcamp

Heavy Psych Sounds website

Yawning Balch is the amalgam of guitarist Bob Balch (Fu Manchu, Big Scenic Nowhere, ex-Minotaur, Slower, and so on), and the current incarnation of Gary Arce-led desert rock progenitors Yawning Man, which includes Arce on guitar alongside drummer Bill Stinson and bassist Billy Cordell. Word has been kicking around of the project since last Fall, and last week, the cover art and a song snippet were posted announcing the record as Volume One of a two-volume set carved out of a single five-hour jam between Balch and the trio. Today I have the pleasure of premiering the first track and hosting the release announcement of Volume One, which will see issue through Heavy Psych Sounds.

I noted last week that a collaboration between Arce and Balch — not to mention Stinson, Mario Lalli, Tony Reed and others — is also at the heart of Big Scenic Nowhere, but Yawning Balch seems more about the raw jams than making structured songs out of those parts, and well, that’s just dandy; long established is the fact that these cats can jam. It didn’t seem like wild or unwarranted speculation to think that Heavy Psych Sounds would handle the release, and it’s cool to confirm now that yes, it will, offering up Volume One on July 7, which if you’re keeping up is less than a month out from Yawning Man‘s Long Walk of the Navajo (info here), set to arrive June 16.

Info and audio — the track is a joy at 21 minutes long, so settle in — follow the previously-posted cover art below. Dig:

DREAMING WITH EYES OPEN is the first single taken from YAWNING BALCH debut album VOL. 1.

The release will see the light July 7th via Heavy Psych Sounds.

ALBUM DESCRIPTION

Bob Balch here. In November of 2022 I went out to Joshua Tree for a day of jamming with the guys in Yawning Man with the intention of calling it “Yawning Balch.” No riffs were planned. We just plugged in and played. The only discussion beforehand was that Gary Arce and I wanted to mess with tons of guitar pedals. I knew that while we were jamming it sounded great, but it wasn’t until I got home and listened to it all that I realized we had something special. It’s hard to believe that we jammed for five hours and got two full length LPs and then some out of it. Every player killed it on these recordings and I’m beyond grateful to have my name involved with this legendary band. Fingers crossed they invite me back out annually for more jam sessions. I hope you enjoy these jams and please use responsibly.

CREDITS

Recorded at Gatos Trail and engineered by Dan Joeright.
Mixed and Mastered by Kent Stump at Crystal Clear Sound.

Artwork and layout by John McGill
Logo by Pia Isaksen

Yawning Balch is:
Gary Arce – guitar
Bob Balch – guitar
Billy Cordell – bass
Bill Stinson – drums

https://www.facebook.com/yawningmanofficial/
https://yawningman.bandcamp.com
http://www.yawningman.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bigscenicnowhere/
https://www.instagram.com/bigscenicnowhere/
https://bigscenicnowhere.bandcamp.com/releases
https://bigscenicnowherestore.bigcartel.com/

heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/
https://www.instagram.com/heavypsychsounds_records/

Yawning Balch, “Dreaming With Eyes Open” track premiere

Last November, guitarist Bob Balch of Fu Manchu and Big Scenic Nowhere (also ex-Minotaur, etc.) put out word of a lengthy jam session — thankfully recorded — with desert rock instrumentalists Yawning Man and threatened that it “might be a double record.” It would seem that has turned out to be exactly the case, as the cover art and a snippet of a song called “Dreaming With Eyes Open” have been posted ahead of the release of Yawning Balch‘s first installment, Volume One. I don’t know when it’s actually going to be released, but “early summer” says May or June to me, and given the sprawl in this minute-long sample, I’m happy to immerse whenever it arrives, which is not to mention how.

Balch and founding Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce are of course no strangers to each other, collaborating in Big Scenic Nowhere alongside Tony Reed, Mario Lalli, Yawning Man drummer Bill Stinson and others, and Yawning Balch would seem to manifest as a new offshoot of Yawning Man in the spirit of Arce-related projects like Yawning Suns or Ten East, as opposed to Big Scenic Nowhere, which although built out of jams seemingly recorded in a block-of-time session like this, are fleshed out and edited into (relatively) structured pieces that generally include vocals.

Yawning Balch, with Billy Cordell on bass, Stinson on drums, and Arce/Balch on guitar (one assumes the moniker ‘AC/BC’ was considered and dismissed; fair enough) will release at least two long-players carved from out of five hours of recorded jams — that’s up from three in the first post — with the gorgeous front cover by John McGill and a logo by Pia Isaksen of Norway’s Superlynx (Arce also played on her Pia Isa solo record last year), through a label still to be announced.

Or I guess it’s possible they could self-release it, throw it out there on Bandcamp and other DSPs for whoever wants to chase it down or hope to catch whatever algorithm puts music in ears these days, but considering Yawning Man‘s recently announced new LP, Long Walk of the Navajo, is set for June 16 through Heavy Psych Sounds and the same label has been behind Big Scenic Nowhere, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think that might be a home for Yawning Balch as well, even if that same Yawning Man release’s timing would make it basically concurrent to the “early summer” Yawning Balch outing.

Scheduling. Logistics. Preorders. All that new-record stuff. There’s a lot of info still to shake out for Yawning Balch‘s Volume One, but it’s nobody’s first time at this particular dance, so sit tight and it’ll get here when it gets here. If you’re not already feeling impatient though, that song snippet should help you get there.

Enjoy:

YAWNING BALCH (Volume 1) will be released early this summer! Back in November of last year I jammed with @yawningmanofficial in Joshua Tree, CA at @gatostrail. We had five hours and the end result is two records of fully improvised pedal porn jams. Both Volumes 1 and 2 consist of three long songs. Here is a small clip of a song titled “Dreaming With Eyes Open.” I’ll post more clips soon. Can’t wait for you to hear this stuff. It’s crazy. Artwork by the very talented @johnmcgill
@garymichaelarce
@frontsideluther
@sacred_soundbath
Band logo by Pia Isaksen

Band photo by @gatostrail

https://www.facebook.com/yawningmanofficial/
https://yawningman.bandcamp.com
http://www.yawningman.com/

https://www.facebook.com/bigscenicnowhere/
https://www.instagram.com/bigscenicnowhere/
https://bigscenicnowhere.bandcamp.com/releases
https://bigscenicnowherestore.bigcartel.com/

https://www.facebook.com/FuManchuBand
https://www.instagram.com/fumanchuband
https://twitter.com/fumanchuband

https://www.playthisriff.com/
https://www.facebook.com/PlayThisRiff/
https://www.instagram.com/playthisriff/

Yawning Balch, “Dreaming With Eyes Open” snippet

Park myself in Joshua Tree for a weekend just as the winter is turning to spring, catch a ton of awesome bands from and beyond the desert? Yeah, that sounds pretty magical, to be honest. Nothing against San Francisco. I’ve seen videos from outside at Thee Parkside and it looks like an incredible place to see a gig, but if I’m making the trip from the other side of the country — and unless there’s a sudden fiscal windfall in my favor, I’m not, sadly — it’s the desert calling, all the more with All Souls and BigPig and Third Ear Experience on that bill. That’s a memorable weekend in the making.

The 2023 lineups for Heavy Psych Sounds Fest in California are finished, and with the two posters next to each other you can see some of the differences from one to the other, but they’re mostly the same as artists will play in one city one night, the other the other, and as someone who remembers seeing Yawning Man and Fatso Jetson together a decade ago at Desertfest London 2013 (review here), I’d offer up a kidney to do so again if I thought I could be healed in time to actually enjoy the show in March.

Anybody want to buy some… shit I have nothing of value. Alright then.

Here’s the bill:

Heavy Psych Sounds Records & Booking is proud to announce *** HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST CALIFORNIA 2023 JOSHUA TREE & SAN FRANCISCO ***

full lineup announcement

Heavy Psych Sounds together with Plastic Cactus Productions and Subliminal SF presents the full lineup of the Heavy Psych Sounds Fest California 2023 !!!

HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST ***CALIFORNIA 2023***
MARCH 25 & 26

SAN FRANCISCO @ OPEN AIR AT THEE PARKSIDE

JOSHUA TREE @ HI DESERT CULTURAL CENTER

JOSHUA TREE
HI DESERT CULTURAL CENTER
MARCH 25th and 26th

WINDHAND
WEEDEATER
BRANT BJORK
NEBULA
THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX
YAWNING MAN
FATSO JETSON
DUEL
HIPPIE DEATH CULT
GEEZER
KADABRA
WARLUNG
LOVE GANG
WITCHPIT
COSMIC REAPER
ALL SOULS
BIG PIG
THIRD EAR EXPERIENCE
DEATHCHANT
WHISKEY AND KNIVES
HIGH TONE SON OF A BITCH

SAN FRANCISCO
OPEN AIR AT THEE PARKSIDE
MARCH 25th and 26th

WINDHAND
WEEDEATER
MONDO GENERATOR
NEBULA
THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX
DUEL
HIPPIE DEATH CULT
GEEZER
KADABRA
WARLUNG
LOVE GANG
COSMIC REAPER
WITCHPIT
DEATHCHANT
HIGH TONE SON OF A BITCH
DISASTROID

TICKETS PRESALE SAN FRANCISCO:
https://www.venuepilot.co/events/65782/orders/new

TICKETS PRESALE JOSHUA TREE:
https://heavypsychsounds.ticketleap.com/heavy-psych-sounds-fest-joshua-tree-2023/

heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/

Windhand, Live in Hollywood, CA, June 26, 2022

A couple days’ escape to Joshua Tree just as winter starts to wane sounds pretty god damn good right now. And that’s nothing against San Francisco, mind you — there’s an Amoeba Music there, so however otherwise expensive lodging may be, it’s worth it — but a bit of desert rock in its native habitat feels like a win, and with more bands to be announced, Heavy Psych Sounds Fest 2023 in California makes an enticing prospect. Daydream-worthy.

Traveling from the East Coast will be Weedeater, the particularly sludgy Witchpit, Cosmic Reaper and The Atomic Bitchwax, Duel make the trip from Texas, Hippie Death Cult come down from Portland, Oregon, and Brant Bjork and Nebula represent California itself, so already the two-dayers (which will swap lineups from one night to the next) are varied in geography and style, and one would expect no less at this point. It ain’t Heavy Psych Sounds‘ first rodeo. The label/booking empire also recently announced two fests in Italy and if past is prologue, one expects plenty more to come as well spread throughout 2023.

We live in a golden age. Peak riffs.

From the PR wire:

*** HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST CALIFORNIA *** first confirmed bands

Heavy Psych Sounds together with Plastic Cactus Productions and Subliminal SF presents the 2023 edition of the HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST CALIFORNIA !!!

The HPS Fest California will be taking place 25th and 26th of March, 2023 at the Thee Parkside (open air) in San Francisco and Hi Desert Cultural Center in Joshua Tree !!!

HEAVY PSYCH SOUNDS FEST – CALIFORNIA
@ Thee Parkside, San Francisco
@ Hi Desert Cultural Center, Joshua Tree

March 25th and 26th 2023

FIRST CONFIRMED BANDS

WEEDEATER
BRANT BJORK
NEBULA
THE ATOMIC BITCHWAX
DUEL
HIPPIE DEATH CULT
COSMIC REAPER
WITCHPIT

+ more TBA

In January we will unveil the full line up and single day line up.

Same line up will play both cities in different days !!!

TICKETS PRESALE SAN FRANCISCO: https://www.venuepilot.co/events/65782/orders/new

TICKETS PRESALE JOSHUA TREE: https://heavypsychsounds.ticketleap.com/heavy-psych-sounds-fest-joshua-tree-2023/

heavypsychsoundsrecords.bandcamp.com
www.heavypsychsounds.com
https://www.facebook.com/HEAVYPSYCHSOUNDS/

Brant Bjork, Bougainvillea Suite (2022)

[Click play above to stream Brant Bjork’s Bougainvillea Suite in its entirety. Album is out Friday through Heavy Psych Sounds.]

Cheers to whatever circumstances in the universe resulted in the usually-on-drums Ryan Güt getting an organ. Bougainvillea Suite is by somebody’s count the 14th studio album by Brant Bjork, and perhaps more crucially, it is the first since May 2020’s Brant Bjork (review here), an interim in which the multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter and desert rock figurehead has released two long-players as guitarist/vocalist as part of the trio Stöner with fellow Kyuss alum Nick Oliveri (also Mondo Generator, Dwarves, etc.) and the aforementioned Ryan Güt (on drums) in 2021’s Stoners Rule (review here) and 2022’s Totally… (review here). Because Stöner have been touring since about three months before it was actually safe for things to open up, Bougainvillea Suite — the thorny bougainvillea vines depicted on its cover art by Bjork and Mario Lalli (Yawning Man, Fatso Jetson, lately of Mario Lalli and the Rubber Snakecharmers, which is basically Stöner plus himself and vocalist/performance artist Sean Wheeler) — arrives as something of a surprise.

Led off by the cool start-stop bounce of “Trip on the Wine,” finished by the jamming Bo Diddley cover “Who Do You Love” (Quicksilver Messenger Service also did a version and George Thorogood made it a radio hit), with no shortage of hooks and Bjork‘s charismatic cool laced into the masterfully fuzzed “Good Bones,” the later “Ya Dig,” and so on, Bougainvillea Suite runs eight tracks in a relatively unassuming 41 minutes, and is fairly Stöner-adjacent in terms of sound and style. Güt may be on organ and percussion instead of drumming — Bjork handles vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and other percussion; co-produced with Yosef Sanborn at The Rad Cabin in Joshua Tree — and Oliveri may be relegated to an appearance on guitar and backing vocals on the song-for-our-times, finally-someone-saying-screw-it-let’s-get-high-in-a-way-that-isn’t-somehow-fascist “Bread for Butter,” but “Good Bones” and the subsequent “So They Say” have the laid back swing and swagger that are hallmarks of Bjork‘s work over the last 20-plus years of his solo career, and are composed in such a style that it feels like they could easily have been brought to a Stöner jam and turned into that band’s songs. Ditto “Ya Dig,” which actually it wouldn’t surprise in the slightest if it turned up on a third Stöner album, even more than “Bread for Butter,” which, again, has Oliveri singing on it.

This, however, is nothing to complain about, and while I’ll recognize that ‘Hey, Brant Bjork is writing songs that sound like Brant Bjork‘ isn’t exactly universe-defining insight, there’s no question he’s got a sound. For the last two years, that’s been channeled into getting Stöner going, and Bougainvillea Suite steps aside from that, but it’s largely inarguable, and with Güt on keys, these songs make a distinct impression whether it’s in comparison to the band in which Güt and Bjork also play or Bjork‘s solo catalog as a whole (did I mention 14 albums?). The organ is right there after the first drum fill in “Trip on the Wine,” and it runs a thread through the jabby-snare verses of “Good Bones” and fills out beneath the clever lyrics and telltale wah of “So They Say” before adding to the easy-motion twist of “Broke That Spell,” no less crucial an element than the guitar itself as it plays off the central riff and, especially in the latter, takes its own casual saunter of a progression as a preface for “Who Do You Love” still to come.

Like much of what persists throughout Bougainvillea Suite, that extended closing jam isn’t necessarily new ground for Bjork in terms of aesthetic or methodology, but in context it emphasizes the masterful hand with which he is able to guide the listener through the span of a classically constructed full-length; casual, funky and cool as ever, but not at all unconsidered. Side B, accordingly, is an expansion on the moves and tones established on side A, with “Bread for Butter” both the closest Bjork comes to Stöner and the most outward in terms of social commentary, though the comment is less political — Bjork has never shied away from speaking as a person of color through his music; see 2014’s Black Power Flower (review here), among myriad other examples; there is no sense of whitewash here either — than personal, an almost aspirational reminder to keep one’s head amid the onset of the various apocalypses of the last few years.

Sound advice, and if perhaps that same impulse is behind the willful mellowness that’s happening across Bougainvillea Suite, it would make sense, but Bjork has said that much of the ‘bittersweet’ spirit in these songs comes from his own ups and downs, and that after a stretch that might legitimately be defined as an era of his output, he’ll no longer be making records at the same studio in Joshua Tree. If “Bread for Butter” is trying to take that in stride too, well, it would be in character as well as on theme, and it works in the context of the album itself as well, since Bjork‘s laying out of options, “The Beatles or the Stones,” prefaces the bit of devil-sympathy that shows itself in the acoustic strum and hand percussion of “Let’s Forget,”  a sweet and familiar refrain about the “beauty of now” with the title-line nestled into, “please let’s forget about yesterday.”

In terms of execution, the closing duo of “Let’s Forget” and “Who Do You Love” are clearly shooting for different vibes, the former wistful, the latter a blues jam built on top of cyclical tom runs, but they both bring into emphasis how much Güt is contributing here. “Let’s Forget” is peppered with melodic notes of what might be a Rhodes or at least Rhodes-ish sounds — if you told me it was guitar I’d just throw up my hands and say whatever; there are plenty of other examples to cite throughout the record in making the same point — and while it seems to be obscured before the song is really allowed to come apart following its here’s-another-channel-of-guitar solo (no complaints), the organ in “Who Do You Love” is as essential to defining the personality there as it is to “Trip on the Wine” or “Good Bones” back at the rockers-up-front outset. He’s the secret weapon in Stöner too. Should be used to it by now. While we’re talking about it, I’ll also note that few and far between are the artists who would allow someone else to have such an impact on a ‘solo’ record, and that is something to appreciate.

There’s some amount of reassurance to Bougainvillea Suite in that it reaffirms Bjork‘s commitment to the work he does under his own name even as Stöner continues to tour and will presumably have another LP coming barring disaster — the two so far and subsequent tours seem to have been well received — and its somewhat melancholy spirit speaks both to the times and the personal landmark that it is for Bjork as an artist. In a career more than 30 years deep that has likely seen peaks and valleys enough to make the Rockies blush, the greater comfort one derives from Bougainvillea Suite is knowing that whatever comes, Bjork will figure it out, keep making music, keep going. Longevity, creativity, his own style of craft and performance have made him desert rock’s most formidable ambassador. All of these elements, and more, are present here in ready supply.

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