Heron & Crane’s Firesides record is where dipped-in-acid Americana gets a strange makeover by retro-futurist British electronics and library music

Firesides is the debut of plugged-in and switched-on psych folk duo Heron & Crane, who mapped the album out between their Charlottesville, Virginia and Columbus, Ohio locations. The result sees airy, dipped-in-acid Americana given a strange makeover by retro-futurist British electronics and library music. That the influences work effortlessly is testament to Heron & Crane’s ownership of their aesthetic. A different American take on the hauntological wellspring from Panamint Manse, it’s fascinating to watch these varied paths open up.

Vintage synthesisers are employed to subtly intoxicating effect across the record. “Another Unfortunate Mannequin” rolls in like a gentle breeze, a sojourn into Heron & Crane’s particular psych folk that acts as a sonic palette cleanser. The marvelously jaunty “Surf Trials” could be the soundtrack to a late 1960s stop-motion children’s programme on the BBC. Despite the allusions of the title, it’s more Belbury Poly than Beach Boys. That it would sit splendidly alongside the later, more prog-tinged work by Belbury Poly makes it a rather joyful hauntological excursion indeed. The song-based, crafted pastoral pop of “Cave Cricket Crossing” brings with it imaginings of Linda and Paul McCartney going about their Arcadian days at High Park Farm in the 1970s. Reality is thin here.

Running under the implied sonic landscape, like some kosmische invocation of Alan Garner’s The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, “Space Junk” shimmers, undulates and pulses. “Rituals of Release” is ancient electronica which might pose as an alternative score to Penda’s Fen. There’s an autumnal tone to proceedings, the dying of the summer in the court of dead pagan kings and queens. “Companions of Fish & Turtles” might be 1960s West Coast instrumental acid folk with synth pop bled through its core, like words through a stick of Brighton rock.

Listening to Firesides feels like stepping into a watercolour painting hanging on a grandparent’s wall. It’s an adventure without danger, for there’s an understanding that the music will always guide you back.

heronandcranemusic.bandcamp.com

Stewart Gardiner
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