The Long Morrow is striking in the nuance of its sound and process alike. It is the second full-length from West Coasterly conglomeration Big Scenic Nowhere, the project founded by guitarists Bob Balch (Fu Manchu) and Gary Arce (Yawning Man) that quickly came to include multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Tony Reed (keys, bass, guitar, synth, Mellotron, etc.) of Mos Generator and Yawning Man drummer Bill Stinson, as well, initially, as a range of guests. That was true of their early-2020 debut LP, Vision Beyond Horizon (review here), which brought contributions from members of The Well, Monolord and acknowledged keymaster Per Wiberg (Kamchatka, King Hobo, Candlemass, Opeth, Switchblade, on and on forever).

Comprised of five tracks running 36 minutes — a substantial portion of which are dedicated to closer “The Long Morrow” (19:45) itself — The Long Morrow pulls back on that inclusionary mission somewhat. Wiberg makes a return appearance on synth, and guitarist Reeves Gabrels (David Bowie, The Cure, many others) does likewise, both on the title-track, but beyond that, The Long Morrow is Arce, Balch, Reed and Stinson, and it proves handily that the band — and yes, they are a band — doesn’t need anything else.

In Oct. 2020, Big Scenic Nowhere issued their Lavender Blues EP (review here), and with it came more understanding about how their songs are made, and when. The core four-piece have gotten together all of once, jamming for a stretch of three apparently-quite-productive days in Nov. 2019. And everything they’ve released since, across Vision Beyond Horizon, Lavender Blues and now The Long Morrow, has been culled from those sessions. But it’s what’s behind that culling. With Reed in Washington and Stinson, Arce and Balch in California (which doesn’t necessarily make them neighbors, by the way), the band has worked remotely.

It’s been a good time to do so, of course. But even without the plague, The Long Morrow finds Balch and Reed passing the initial jams and improvisations back and forth to each other, trading ideas and gradually sculpting songs out of pieces set to loops, with Balch finding common tunings and melodic expressions and parts that might set well next to each other to build cuts like “Defector (of Future Days)” while Reed fleshes out structures with verses, sundry keys, some acoustic guitar on “Murder Klipp” and the grand finale.

This work, which one imagines is both deeply tedious and deeply satisfying when it works — like a jigsaw puzzle that can be any shape; Balch talks about it here — can and sometimes does result in open-ended, longer-form material. Such was the case on the band’s first release, which was the 2019 proof-of-concept PostWax EP, Dying on the Mountain EP (discussed here). Likewise, the title-track of Lavender Blues easily reached over 13 minutes, and the aforementioned “The Long Morrow” nearly hits 20, so Big Scenic Nowhere want now and have wanted nothing for showcasing their jammy roots. At the same time, The Long Morrow feels like the most directly song-based work they’ve yet done.

Part of that clarity might perhaps stem from the relative hunkering-down of the lineup involved in those original jams implied through inviting fewer outside participants, but through “Defector (of Future Days),” “Murder Klipp” “Lavender Bleu” — which is a five-minute stretch constructed from the same foundation as the lengthier “Lavender Blues,” and admirably finds its own direction — the quicker, more intense “LeDü” and even in “The Long Morrow,” the band consciously carve progressive heavy psychedelic rock, lush in melody and aware of its own aural impact, from the sonic ether of those jams.

“Defector (of Future Days)” begins the proceedings with a purposeful crunch and angularity to its central riff. It feels written traditionally, a verse/chorus structure bringing the first of the Reed-delivered hooks as Arce‘s inimitable guitar tone adds post-rocking float to the winding rhythm from Balch (who swaps with Reed, playing bass on the track) and Stinson, whose reliability as a drummer isn’t to be understated. As “Murder Klipp” adds Mellotron and acoustic guitar to its dramatic second half and “Lavender Bleu” (premiered here) begins its serene unfolding with Arce‘s quiet dream-desert noodling at the front before the more direct fuzz of its chorus hits, Stinson‘s drums never seem to miss a moment or a turn. Even a cut-and-paste situation, where one wouldn’t necessarily expect to find ‘mistakes’ such as they are, he brings a fluidity to the songs that reminds of just how essential his work is to Yawning Man as well.

It’s all the more crucial, though, in a band with three guitarists, each with his own personality in Arce, Balch and Reed — the last of whom, yes, plays bass on most of the material, but adds acoustic to “Murder Clip” and “The Long Morrow,” as noted, and is very much a melodic presence on vocals and synth/Mellotron as well — even before they bring in someone like Reeves Gabrels, who’s presumably the party responsible (in part at least) for the shredfest that starts shortly after the nine-minute mark in the closer. The underlying point is that Big Scenic Nowhere come across in The Long Morrow more like a band than a project, and each member is essential to that, whether it’s Reed tossing in lyrical themes of one’s place in passing time and arrangement elements like the soft electric piano in the beginning verses of “The Long Morrow” or the layered vocal in “LeDü,” Arce spacing out the atmospherics, Balch finding the groove for a riff and piecing the songs together or Stinson serving as the baseline (not bassline) from which the material is crafted.

Finding a narrative of progression from one release to the next is an impulse on the part of the listener — what are they doing here as opposed to last time? — but despite pulling their songs from the same three-day stretch of show-up-with-nothing-and-see-what-happens jamming that resulted in the first album and subsequent EP, The Long Morrow indeed demonstrates growth in what’s being made from that raw material, and the deeper Big Scenic Nowhere go into the ground they’re working from, the more what they unearth seems to be their own. The Long Morrow affirms Big Scenic Nowhere‘s prog-hued vision of desert psychedelia, heavy without being held down by its weight, and able to drift or land hard at will. It is cohesive like an ecosystem.

Big Scenic Nowhere, The Long Morrow (2022)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 30th, 2021 at 3:08 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.