#24

Flying Canyon
Flying Canyon
(Soft Abuse)

Dependent on who you ask, folk music either had a banner coming out year or a deluge of half-baked ideas and crap singer-songwriters wearing Indian Guides outfits. Either way, when the originators come through it’s best to listen and pay attention.

Notable for their interesting recording techniques (often open air, in caves, etc.) and homemade instrumentation, the Jewelled Antler-associated folks here Shadye Sartin, Glenn Donaldson and frontman Cayce Lindner released one of the finest quiet and introspective collections of the year. Self-promoted as “doom-folk” perhaps jokingly, the melodies here are, in fact, heavy and downtempo, but a certain natural ease emanates from the record giving the Californian in all of us a place to rest our weary head.