The third outing from the
Cooper Crain
-led, Windy City-based experimental trio sees the
Bitchin Bajas
teaming up with the equally mercurial
Will Oldham
(aka
Bonnie "Prince" Billy
) for a good, old-fashioned minimalist hoedown. The aptly named
Epic Jammers and Fortunate Little Ditties
offers up a trance-inducing set of bucolic folk emissions that pair elliptical melodies with
Oldham
riffing on fortune-cookie aphorisms. Opener "May Life Throw You a Pleasant Curve" eases the listener into the float tank with a summery,
Incredible String Band
-inspired refrain and
's affable warble, and coming in at just over three minutes, it serves as a pleasant aperitif. What follows is largely the same, but bereft of any sort of brevity, which is to be expected from a musical partnership between two such metaphysically minded entities. The
Bajas
and
promise the listener that "you will receive many unknowable hours of joy from this album of collaborative cosmic music," but that largely depends on the listener's threshold for homilies and loops. There is a strong spiritual undercurrent at play throughout the nine tracks, especially on the epic "Your Heart Is Pure, Your Mind Is Clear, Your Soul Devout," which arrives via the soft clang of what sounds like Buddhist meditation bells. That sentiment is echoed again on the monastic "Your Whole Family Are Well," which echoes (sonically) the Muslim call to prayer, as well as mid-period
Dead Can Dance
. All of the free associating and good-natured droning can be a bit torpor inducing, so it's a nice surprise when the closer, "Your Hard Work Is About to Pay Off, Keep on Keeping On," arrives. Loose, languid, yet structured enough to feel like a proper bit of pop craft, it brings things back to earth, if only for a short spell, its unfettered hippie heart aglow with positivity and possibility. [
Epic Jammers
was also released on LP.] ~ James Christopher Monger