Hooker Vision

This landmark collection from Rachel & Grant Evans’ long-running DIY imprint documents and celebrates the diverse community of psych-minded experimentalists from the American South that continued to expand and thrive long after the cassette label explosion of the early 2000s faded away. While Rachel’s own Motion Sickness of Time Travel project will likely be the most well-known name here for many listeners, literally everyone involved seems to have a cool and unique vision and several of these artists have also been the curatorial force behind an influential label as well (like Jeffry Astin’s Housecraft Recordings, for example).

Naturally, a labor of love that draws attention to an underground network of compelling weirdos is right up my alley under just about any circumstances, but I was still a bit blown away by how many great and previously unfamiliar artists this eclectic collection turned me onto, as Creek Drift Mosaic is one of the more “all killer, no filler” compilations in recent memory.  

Notably, Grant Evans’ bio mentions that he is an amateur mycologist and that background was clearly a big inspiration here, as the artists are likened to the fruiting bodies of an underground mycelial network that connects like-minded home-recording visionaries in neighboring states to the Evanses’ own activities in Winterville, Georgia. In keeping with that theme, the physical version of this compilation includes an accompanying zine/field guide that provides biographical information and recommended listening for each of the various artists involved.

While such endearingly hand-crafted touches are not uncommon for major Hooker Vision releases, I found the zine to be an unusually essential and illuminating part of the Creek Drift Mosaic experience, as I quickly discovered that I was a lot more familiar with some of these artists than I had previously thought. For example, I knew that Sparkling Wide Pressure’s Frank Baugh was now recording as Night Sky Body, but I had absolutely no idea that Xiphiidae’s Jeffry Astin was behind the unhinged channel-surfing beat tape madness of I, Conduit or that I already had several albums in my collection from labels run by some of these artists (Watery Starve, Kimberly Dawn, etc.).

The best thing about this compilation, however, is that literally everyone involved brought a killer track to the table and they all seem to have a wonderfully distinctive and hallucinatory vision regardless of whether I had ever heard of them before or not. In keeping with that theme, I was particularly blindsided by the opening tracks by Merryl and Ironing.

In the prosaically titled “Will&Jerm1.wav,” Asheville, NC’s Will Isenogle and collaborator Jerm Joachicide unleash a impressively majestic and spacey soundscape built from rhythmic explosions, chimes, smeary synth drones, and a recurring “where is your head going?” sample that feels like a mantra guiding me through a deep mindfuck. Apparently, Isenogle regularly performs with his minimal gear spread across an upside-down skateboard, which makes for quite an appropriate segue here, as Ironing’s Andrew Chadwick similarly repurposes ironing boards. The similarities between the two artists mostly end there, however, as “Sink” sounds like a cool ambient album made by a haunted radio, as gently pulsing synth drone provides the backdrop for a mesmerizing fantasia of flickering pop music samples, jabbering tape weirdness, and seismic bass swells.  

Naturally, there are plenty of other highlights beyond that opening salvo, but I was more fascinated by the unexpected directions, unconventional structures, and eclectic influences on display throughout the album. For example, Brainworlds’ “Cistothorus Stellaris” opens as a nice bit of pulsing synth ambiance, but gradually transforms into a strain of mutant exotica once the looping bass line and Hawaiian-sounding guitars fade in to claim their places. Similarly, Observance’s “Material Point” modestly opens as a bit of hazy minimalist ambient with a clicking and thumping drum machine pulse, but the insistent beat continually transforms as the drones slowly expand into bleary new harmonies and pulses.

Baugh’s Night Sky Body project blindsided me as well, as an improvised-sounding miasma of queasily pitch-shifting drones and disjointed guitar noise unexpectedly locks into a bass-driven spoken word reverie featuring some very cool smeared and chiming guitars. Perspectives’ “Pranks for the Memories” is similarly curdled and unsettling, as it approximates the sort of queasily stretched and smeared nightmare that may have resulted if early Throbbing Gristle had tried their hand at maliciously recording an album of ruined surf music.

Elsewhere on the album, there are similarly wrong-footing and unexpected detours that resemble everything from a lost ambient album from Pink Floyd’s golden age to a reverb-fogged swirl of celestial harps to a churning and howling symphony of malfunctioning industrial machinery. Absolutely all of it is wonderfully weird, inventive, and psychotropic in one compelling way or another, but this compilation’s larger achievement lies in showcasing all of the unique strains of DIY mindfuckery that have blossomed from this quietly thriving community of unconventional artists and underground music lifers over the years.

Listen here.