Your weekly submersion into new and experimental music.
Steve Palmer isn’t the first musician to invoke the spirit of the late and great John Fahey (see faithful troubadours Jack Rose and William Tyler), but his ability to mold rural guitar stylings with a sunny and psychedelic disposition sets him apart from simply being a modern interpretation of his idol.
‘Cassini’ begins with a cascading wash of crystal clear delay as it dances amongst a strict rhythmic drum beat, later flourished by the sun soaked crunch of chords and multiple layers of wah and country tinged guitar. Palmer doesn’t just abide mountainous terrain and downtrodden blues but also the free spirited landscape of the coastline.
Apart from a Fahey cover at the end of the album, his most obvious referential nods comes in the stripped down mediations of ‘Six Dollar Sunglasses’ and ‘Banjo Burner,’ where Palmer uses both his acoustic and electric guitars to negotiate calming pathways adorned by tastefully placed interceptions of ambient background textures.
