Pacific Walker

This is the second release from the trio of Isaac Edwards, Michael Tapscott, and Raphi Gottesman, but the three artists have a long history together, as all were previously members of Odawas. While Odawas certainly delved into similarly psychedelic folk territory, the difference between the two projects is quite a dramatic one, as this album is more of a hallucinatory and impressionist fantasia than a collection of songs. The opening “Induction Ceremony” makes for a bit of a deceptive introduction, however, as it initially sounds like an beatific hippy jam around a campfire before it gradually dissolves into smeared and whooshing cacophony of chanting voices. Once that descent down the rabbit hole is complete, however, this tape sounds like something that would have been found in the overgrown jungle ruins of Jonestown if everyone there had been raptured up to heaven instead of dying in a mass suicide. 

More specifically, Lost in the Valley of the Sun feels like an enigmatic chopped-and-screwed fever dream of private press New Age mysticism and outsider hippy cult/commune ensembles like The Source Family. Beyond the wonderfully bleary, blissed out, and hallucinatory vibe homage, however, lies an ingeniously crafted and legitimately transcendent headphone album centered around a single sublime song.  That song’s most perfect iteration is “Blessed in The Chapel of the Tears (Crying),” a sensuously swaying dream of strummed acoustic guitar, slowed-down vocals, an unexpectedly soulful sax solo, and hallucinatory vapor trails of vocal effects. 

The same “Someday I’ll find…” vocal hook continually resurfaces throughout the album, teasing out poetic lyrical fragments until the whole song comes together with the closing “Some Kind of Guru,” but some of the most beautiful moments on the album are the evocative ambient dreamscapes along the way (“Bustuarii Tears for di Inferni” and “Birds in Paradise”). The overall experience feels akin to slowly waking up stoned on a beach to a sublimely gorgeous sunrise or blissfully dissolving into a beam of pure white light in a remote jungle. Given that, Lost In The Valley of the Sun is an absolutely mesmerizing and immersive experience on pure vibes alone, but I was also a bit blown away by the ingenious construction of Pacific Walker’s halcyon jungle paradise. This entire album is a sublime feat of minimalist magic, refracting just a few simple chords and words into a kaleidoscopic swirl of  haunting melodies and oscillating, dreamlike vapor trails of decay and delay. Brilliant work.

Listen here.