T.G. Olson, La Violenza Naturale: Over New Horizons
Posted in Reviews on December 16th, 2016 by JJ Koczan
A headphone listen reveals subtle layering in the vocals of the opener to T.G. Olson‘s latest album, La Violenza Naturale. Given the fact that he’s the same T.G. Olson who in 2013 put out The Complete Blood Meridian for Electric Drone Guitar, a six-disc drone soundtrack to Cormac McCarthy’s novel, it’s hardly the most experimental move he’s ever made, but in the context of his more folkish material, much of which is recorded live, it becomes a noteworthy bit of flourish to “Broken Trails,” however subtle it might otherwise be.
Olson, founder and frontman of Across Tundras, continues his prolific stream of solo releases with the 35-minute collection, following earlier 2016’s single From the Rocky Peaks b/w Servant to Blues (discussed here) and full-lengths The Broken End of the Deal (review here) and Quicksilver Sound (discussed here) as well as the Across Tundras EP, Home Free (discussed here), and 2015 outings including albums The Wandering Protagonist (review here) and The Boom and Bust(discussed here), which themselves followed 2014’s The Rough Embrace (review here; vinyl review here) and 2013’s The Bad Lands to Cross (discussed here) and Hell’s Half Acre (discussed here), as well as the most recent proper Across Tundras long-player, Electric Relics (review here), which is well due for a follow-up. La Violenza Naturale — the title of which seems to have been shortened from La Violenza Naturale / The Natural Violence from when it came out in November, if the revised cover art is anything to go by — finds its release in the same sans-ceremony manner as all of the above: it wasn’t on Bandcamp, and then it was.
Physical release on limited CD and tape and the potentiality of vinyl have been floated for 2017, but for now, it follows in the string of digital offerings put out there waiting for those who would find them to do so. Albeit somewhat post-modern, there’s a kind of romanticism to the notion of making a bunch of sonic postcards and tossing them into the digital ether, and maybe the persistent Americholy that Olson fuses into his material plays to that. Hearing songs like “Lonely Bright Lights” and “Sights Set on Destruction,” not only do the layered vocals of “Broken Trails” become a theme alongside the blend of lap steel and acoustic guitar, effects, organ and synth, but even compared to some of his other solo work — that is, the output he plays, records and issues himself, even going so far as to construct the physical packaging when there is any — La Violenza Naturale carries a meditative feel.
This is the case even unto the penultimate take on the Peruvian folk song “El Condor Pasa,” perhaps best known from Simon & Garfunkel‘s 1970 album, Bridge over Troubled Water and the spacious wash of instrumental post-rock guitar that follows on the closing title-track, organ or other keyboard sounding like a pan-flute as it cuts through the breadth surrounding. These turns follow the wistful “Welcome to Anywhere U.S.A.,” which is stood out for its repetitive cycles of lyrics and the slow-motion ramble that’s an indelible mark of Olson‘s songwriting, and present here even when the guitar seems to be so minimally plucked and the organ so far off in the background as to make one unsure they’re not imagining its presence in the first place. Just as likely as not that’s the intent, but the point is that as one has come to expect from Olson‘s work, the more put into listening, the more is gained from that process.
One particular highlight here is “Imemine,” which seems to play off the George Harrison/Beatles refrain, reinventing it over a bed of slide and acoustic guitar as a centerpiece after “Sights Set on Destruction” and before “To the Simples Times…” [sic], which takes on a more drawn-out feel of essentially the same blend, adding organ to the mix as a low-end backdrop and departs from some of the catchier sentiments of “Broken Trails,” “Bearing Down” or the pointedly Dylanesque “Lonely Bright Lights” at the start of the album. There’s little reassurance to be found in these tracks, or in “Sights Set on Destruction” and “Imemine,” which is fitting or their all having been recorded in Fall 2016, but if Olson is speaking to current events however vaguely, he’s well within folk bounds in so doing, and flood of guitar effects behind him in “Sights Set on Destruction” as he begs, “Please don’t come undone,” would seem to speak to an underlying threat only beginning to come to fruition. I wouldn’t mind an album of protest songs, if it came to it, but whether or not he’ll get there I wouldn’t try to predict.
The surest bet to make when it comes to Olson‘s solo output to-date is that it will exist. Over the last three-plus years, he’s found himself as a singer-songwriter and worked relentlessly to refine and develop on that level while also keeping a strong element of experimentalism to go with the traditions with which he’s in conversation. By account of his track record over the same stretch, this would seem to be an ongoing process rather than one that has hit a point of arrival at which it will rest or otherwise stagnate. La Violenza Naturale is the latest realization of a tireless creativity, and while one invariably wonders how long Olson can keep up his multiple-albums-per-year pace, it’s worth appreciating while it lasts, especially when it results in outings as rich and immersive as this.
