A while back our very own Sandy wrote about Wentworth Kersey in his ‘Song o’ Day’ series. Since then i’ve tried to keep half an eye out on their endeavours but it’s harder than it appears when each release comes under a new pseudonym. For example, the album before this new one, came out under the name George & Caplin and if i remember correctly it was sent to me with what looked like an old newspaper from some old, forgotten town and inside the cd case was a library card saying there was no return due date. All very baffling. In all honesty I should have blogged about it because it’s an amazing piece of work but for whatever reasons I didn’t but it’s never too late to pick up a copy?

Then a few weeks ago i received through my door a package which contained a cd wrapped in a map of New Mexico and a tape, yes a tape in it’s original case and a note written in orange crayon asking me to listen and hopefully enjoy. Again, all very baffling but very amusing nevertheless.

But then i played it (the cd, i don’t have a tape player otherwise i would have played that instead) and what followed was a jaw dropping experience of an album that completely knocked me out. All the rather baffling cd cases, notes and maps all made complete sense, well it didn’t but here i was trying to work it all out but i feel i’m not meant to. Like Sandy said ‘while the sound is basically “folk” it is soo much more – it has so many textures, auras of rolling Appalachian valleys and a modern day Mexi-Cali conquistadors – all with a slight bit of ambient flowing through it all.‘  I can’t really say it any better than that.

Jjango (i never know what to call these cats anymore) wrote about this album”It’s a concept album about the meandering green 74’ Oldsmobile resident travels through the deserts of the waning west and teetering border towns.  He finds refuge among the roadside vendors and immigrant folktales on his way to the home of his youth in the Salton Sea.”

This music could easily be a lost soundtrack to movie made years and years ago or it could  be what music is going to be sounding like hundreds of years in the future, it’s timeless basically. While listening to it today on the beach full blast in my headphones i imagined myself travelling across the deserts of New Mexico (must have been the map) sometime in the future finding old bits of machinery or radios that only half worked, strange characters talking to me with suspicion while things crackled and hissed all round, maybe post apocalypse? The psychedelic nature of the album has your imagination running wild because the album slowly feeds you nuggets of sound, a distant voice or an echo but for me it’s the overwhelming beauty that makes this album so great, so, so beautiful. Sometimes just the horns is enough to be completely overwhelmed but when you add snippets of crackle and hypnotic sounds  to such devastating effect it takes you places that most music doesn’t.  So, i’m not going to try and work it out anymore, not sure i want to, i like the slightly confused feeling i get when i listen to it but I love the places it takes me more. Thing is, you can’t help but be baffled by all of this because to add to the confusion there is very little Youtube clips, hardly any internet coverage at all in fact. I’m not sure with all the name changes if Jeffrey (i can’t even be certain he’s really called Jeffrey) is deliberately trying to be elusive so as to give all this music even more of a slightly ‘out there’ feel or if it’s just me making more of it than it is. Either way, it all adds to the confusion for me but really, you need to listen and then make your own mind up but if i had to choose my album of the year now, it would be this one because it brings me joy on so many levels. Musically it’s outstanding, it is drenched in atmosphere and each listen brings me new pleasures and it continually keeps me guessing and taking me to new places.  It’s such a forward thinking album with so many levels it’s very easy to go overboard and just make what is essentially noise but they, (he?) seems to know when enough is enough and has created something so astonishing it’s actually impossible to describe it in words, it needs to be heard for it to make any sense. It’s something rather beautiful and close to perfection.

I can’t think of any band or person making the music that Jeffrey, Jjango or whatever his name is these days, is. I know for a while this album was available for free here as well as Highway Driveway (double release alongside Jjango, just to add a little more bafflement) but not sure if they still are. It’s very difficult to put up just one track because these are albums that need to be listened to in their entirety but this one i guess gives you an idea of what to expect. If you like them, even they are free just buy them for the few dollars they’re asking as they are completely D.I.Y and would really appreciate your help. Enjoy.