Album Review: Yawning Sons, Sky Island
It is no small task to separate Sky Island — the title referring to the phenomenon of higher-altitude forests on mountains in deserts, as depicted on the front cover — from the context of its predecessor. Issued in 2009 through Lexicon Devil, the first Yawning Sons album was Ceremony to the Sunset (review here), also reissued by Alone Records on vinyl (review here) in 2014. At the core of the release was the collaboration between UK progressive instrumentalists Sons of Alpha Centauri — bassist Nick Hannon, guitarist Marlon King, drummer Stevie B.(Kyle Hanson is also credited with drums) and noisemaker Blake — and founding Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce. The two parties recorded together for a week in England and enlisted for vocalists a sampling of some of the Californian desert underground’s finest, including Arce‘s bandmate Mario Lalli (also Fatso Jetson), as well as Wendy Rae Fowler (Mark Lanegan Band, Arce‘s WaterWays project) and Scott Reeder (Kyuss, The Obsessed, etc.). To call the results striking is to undersell the quality of the work. I have said before and will probably say again that Ceremony to the Sunset is one of the best desert rock albums ever made, and I stand by that assessment.
The project has been likened to Desert Sessions, the show-up-at-the-studio-and-make-a-record project helmed by Josh Homme. This is incorrect. Yawning Sons are entirely more cohesive, and that’s even clearer on the Ripple Music-issued Sky Island than what’s now to be thought of as the debut. Though Lalli, Fowler and Reeder, as well as Dandy Brown (Hermano, Orquesta del Desierto) and Sons of Alpha Centauri‘s Marlon King add their own personalities to their respective offerings — Brown gets two, which is earned in his performance in them — they do so upon a largely consistent bed of desert-hued heavy psych, marked out by Yawning Sons‘ steady rhythms, Arce‘s signature tone, and a remarkable instrumental flow. They are guests, and the appearances they make comprise a part of the substance of Sky Island, not the whole. That is emphasized in “Passport Beyond the Tides” and “Limitless Artifact,” the two sans-vocal tracks that end sides A and B, respectively. At the same time, Sky Island seems conscious of the standard it’s engaging. Reeder, who would seem to have recorded his own backing track at least in part, tops “Digital Spirit” in harmony that feels like a direct sequel to “Garden Sessions III” and Fowler‘s “Shadows and Echoes,” which leads off side B, effectively channels the spaciousness of “Ghostship – Deadwater” while remaining more grounded.
Still, Sky Island offers more than answer-back or a retread. King‘s contribution to opener “Adrenaline Rush” is enough to make one wonder how Sons of Alpha Centauri have stayed instrumental for so long. I might have switched them it with “Gravity Underwater” the running order, but “Adrenaline Rush” is catchier and that would’ve put Dandy Brown‘s two tracks next to each other, so there are arguments to be made in “Adrenaline Rush”‘s favor as well. Its lyrical narrative, hunting for treasure, seeking out the next titular rush, and so on, is an immediate push on the conception of desert psych as laid back, as well as much of the flow that follows, but it still works sonically, and exemplifies the fact that Yawning Sons don’t need anyone other than themselves to make a track with vocals work. Does that mean a third LP is coming without guests? I have no idea. But the potential is there and apparently has been all along. That they follow “Adrenaline Rush” with the Brown-fronted “Low in the Valley” (as noted) positions them squarely in the desert, and Mario Lalli‘s “Cigarette Footsteps” — the longest inclusion at 8:32 — follows an ethereal narrative that is an outbound joy of sung weirdo poetry and mellow psych, Arce‘s guitar ringing out like the call to prayer it is, a solid but likewise exploratory rhythm happening beneath, never quite hitting the same surge as “Low in the Valley” does when the bass comes forward in its second half, but offering flashes of its own lumber and bolstering the atmosphere in a manner that gives way fluidly to the keyboard intro of “Passport Beyond the Tides.”
That keyboard itself feels different, and is plainly meant to, but makes a fitting complement to the meandering guitar as the longer half of the tracklist rounds out. Interesting that “Adrenaline Rush” and “Passport Beyond the Tides” were recorded in the UK, while the bulk of Sky Island was done at Desert Sky Studios in Joshua Tree, California — the Reeder-topped piece aside. One wonders when those recordings took place, if it was 2019 or earlier. In any case, the inherent differentiation in them only broadens the scope of Sky Island as a whole, and that’s something that “Shadows and Echoes” and “Digital Spirit” benefit from as the album moves gracefully into side B with Fowler‘s echoing lines living up to the intangible nature of her song’s title. Reeder too, come to think of it. Both pieces are short, but effective. Toms and hand percussion back “Digital Spirit” as the guitar and vocals take forward position, Reeder referencing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the lyrics in a way that feels grounding but is transposed into the melancholy of the melody just the same. That leaves “Gravity Underwater” as the final vocalized cut, and it comes through as a return for Yawning Sons — which in itself is fascinating, since so much of what they’ve done as a group has been based around this open collaboration with others.
Simply put, Brown tops “Gravity Underwater” like he belongs there. Able to work in the more open-feeling structure, especially in the later playfulness that comes after the hook, but still following his own course, capable and genuine-feeling in emotional conveyance. Layers back as they push into the second half of the track, and it’s not an instrumental shove that serves as the apex of Sky Island, but that warm-night melody and ambience itself. It carries into the seven-minute “Limitless Artifact,” which caps, again, without vocals, feeling like a parting gift from Arce and Sons of Alpha Centauri and also a last emphasis on what serves as the foundation of the project in the first place. More than a worthy successor, what this second Yawning Sons album does is demonstrate the sustainability of the group. It features elements that are familiar from the debut, the encore guest performances among them, but it also puts forth their most straight-ahead songwriting in “Adrenaline Rush” and a palpable sense of growth as a unit in the experimentalism of “Passport Beyond the Tides,” as well as the sheer flow of “Low in the Valley” and “Cigarette Footsteps,” putting the listener exactly where the band — yeah, a band — want them to be. I won’t speculate on what the future of Yawning Sons might bring, if anything, but the vitality of what they do in these songs professes loudly to forward potential. They may yet have more to say, whatever, whenever, if ever, they choose to say it. 2021 is lucky to have Sky Island in the meantime.
Had pencilled this in for a listen this evening…
If you want more beautiful desert photos the cover is courtesy of Katrin Saalfrank, who is also behind this fantastic book: https://www.katrinsaalfrank.com/book