Take A Trip (part 2)

Take A Trip

A whirlwind guide through the undefined world of American:

psychedelic, trip-rock, stoner, grunge, drone, shoegaze...

investigated by Alan Freeman

Realms of the Barn Owl...

Barn Owl in concert

I first came across Barn Owl after a friend asked if I could find him the album DIGGING THE VOID by the reputedly excellent cosmic guitarist Evan Caminiti. Quite impressed by that when I got it I decided to check-out what else he'd done, only to learn that he is half of the prolific duo called Barn Owl.

Barn Owl? The only history I could find anywhere is this quote from their MySpace page "Guitarists Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti started playing music together soon after meeting in an American Indian science class at San Francisco State in 2005 and realizing they had similar backgrounds playing in metal bands and a shared interest in meditative, psychedelic music." From that you'd not realise that their roots were really in John Fahey styled experimental Americana roots music, so much so in fact that their debut could almost be a John Fahey album to my ears! That was the roots, the germ, but what followed was altogether different!

Okay, their next major release BRIDGE TO THE CLOUDS (Not Not Fun NNF104) from 2007 was like a mixture of John Fahey type stuff, hints of Neil Young soundtracks, but with a heady deepness recalling those multi-guitar textures in classic ethno-acoustic Popol Vuh, all given a big sound, and occasionally drifting off into a lovely cosmic ooze. Here you begin to appreciate that there are two very different guitarists involved, both adopting different roles depending on whether they are playing acoustic, electric, or totally over-treated guitars. FROM OUR MOUTHS A PERPETUAL LIGHT (Not Not Fun NNF123 ) seems to come next, released on LP in 2008 and CD in 2009, it again has that kind of Popol Vuh like spiritual aura about it, only more-so because of the addition of percussion from one Mike Bailey. After this they tended to get a lot more cosmic, with copious amounts of electronic effects often hiding that it was mostly created on guitars. Live they could be quite stunning, and based on the bootleg I have I really wish I'd seen them at the 2011 Supersonic Festival in Birmingham, where their 57 minute set swells from a shimmer through to crazed fury, Ash Ra Tempel onto Cluster, onto... The YouTube extracts of them live just don't do them justice. More in this vein can be found on TRANSFIGURATION (Electric Totem ET001) live in Vancouver, Canada in August 2008 and THE CONJURER (Root Strata RS44) where they get downright spooky.

There are lots of obscurities in their discography, as they tend to do special edition cassettes and CDR's that are sold only at gigs, but nearly all that I've found have been good. I don't think I have superlatives nor the time to review them all, but I will add one more. Credited to Barn Owl & The Infinite Strings Ensemble - THE HEADLANDS (Important Records imprec317) from 2010. This has Evan Caminiti (electric & acoustic guitars, vocals, gong bells) and Jon Porras (electric guitar, dulcimer, vocals, bells) joined by Ellen Fullman on her Long String Instrument (and "Ensemble" featuring Theresa Wong on cello, and mystery man "The Norman Conquest") all adding up to some superbly serene and deep cosmic droney stuff .

Evan Caminiti, as a soloist has also been quite prolific. My first encounter DIGGING THE VOID (Students Of Decay SOD-83) was an ear opener. Here we have a music that not only bridges the worlds of early Steve Tibbetts and Alain Markusfeld, but also melds lots of new ideas into the overall cosmic aura. And he keeps it all too edgy and spooky to fall into the "pretty" trap of most new-agers. All the others I've encountered by him are good, of course some are more striking and engaging than others, like PSYCHIC MUD SHRINE (Digitalis ACE029) also from 2009, it features just four tracks, each with a different focus, ranging from really sludgy drone/tonal guitar walls to celestial ambient trips, and more. And, let's not forget the bizarrely titled WHEN CALIFORNIA FALLS INTO THE SEA (Handmade Birds HB-006) a 2011 collection of shorter vignettes. He now also releases ambient music under the name Painted Caves.

Higuma is another Evan Caminiti project, together with one Lisa McGee. As most releases like this are devoid of information we have to seek out another project Lisa is involved in to find out what she does besides vocals. In Vestals, on their FOREVER FALLING TOWARD THE SKY she's credited with vocals, guitar, drumulator, so at least we know she's a multi-instrumentalist. That makes sense when you hear HAZE VALLEY (Root Strata RS41) which we are told is: improvisations recorded live in the valley, winter 07/08. For a duo live this is big sounding music, full of pensive tension, celestial drone, guitars, wordless voice, etc. that will inevitably remind one of Popol Vuh, although it couldn't possibly be, as the guitar style (whilst one could compare it to Conny Viet) is distinctly Americana, and we have a feel that definitely dates this as new 21st Century. DEN OF THE SPIRITS (Digitalis DIGIV019) from 2010 and 2011's PACIFIC FOG DREAMS (Root Strata RS 073) offer more such elated music, again in their now patent side-step from Popol Vuh vein, mixed with more oozy and droney cascades, and the occasional number that also recalls some Dead Can Dance.

Jon Porras, based on the evidence of his non Barn Owl work, would seem to be the least roots inspired of the two guitarists. Much of his earlier solo work is recorded under the project name Elm. WOVEN INTO LIGHT (Blackest Rainbow) from 2008 has Jon adopting the one-man band approach: guitar, vocals, harmonium, harmonica, flute and drums, amounting to an album of excellent cosmic guitar and electronics, with added ritualistic dynamics. The unpronounceable BXOGONOAS (Digitalis ltd#34) has a wider ranging collection of short tracks which I described in my notes as: with hints of Popol Vuh and Stephan Micus meeting early primordial Ash Ra Tempel drifts - kind of! Yes, that'll do! There's at least one other Elm release: NEMCATACOA (Digitalis ACE028) which is similarly exotic and full of little new surprises and diversions. Since then, however, Jon has worked solo under his own name, debuting as such with UNDERCURRENT (Root Strata RS83) a more restrained oozy sonics/guitars blend riding on the edge of the cosmos.

Gärden Söund involves both Evan and Jon from Barn Owl together with Dewey Mahood and Jed Bindeman of Eternal Tapestry (more on them later) doing a kind of retro psychedelic jam music that exactly what I expected based on the name. Note the spelling. There's definitely an air of Älgarnas Trädgård about BLACK SUMMIT (Digitalis Recordings digiv028) that same kind of Nordic flavour, with a dash of Balkan and Eastern textures, along with all sorts of influences. I guess they'd also been listening to Pärson Sound, International Harvester and other Swedish underground of the 1960's/70's. If not, I'd be surprised. Funny thing though, it's not quite what one would expect from either Barn Owl or Eternal Tapestry musicians, which goes to show how explorative, talented and original they are in both adapting their influences and coming up with original new ideas of their own.

There are a number of other such related projects: Hanging Thief being one. Why on earth anyone would want to call a band Hanging Thief I don't know! That involved Barn Owl in collaboration with members Altar Eagle, which I had but didn't keep. Don't know why! There's also a huge new super-group project called: Portraits (yet to hear), that features the Barn Owls with a cast of others largely unknown to me, namely: Jefre Cantu-Ledesma (Root Strata, Tarentel), Lisa McGee (Higuma), Gregg Kowalsky & Marielle Jakobsons (Date Palms), Maxwell Croy (Root Strata / EN) Steven Dye & Tony Cross (Tarentel) and Michael Elrod (Date Palms) - no doubt these are all other bands to investigate!

from  Audion #57, page 9 (Autumn 2012)