This year I moved to the California desert on little more than a lasting impulse that the next chapter of my journey lay somewhere in its golden sands. After living around cities all my life, the vastness and isolation felt like a necessary blank slate to reapproach music and sound. Though I was excited to scope out the local music scenes, hoping to uncover inspiration and a sonic introduction to my new home, I quickly realized my search would not be easy. I sought music that embodied the landscape and communicated a feeling of existing in it—I found cover bands and an endless supply of classic and hard rock. It’s music that isn’t always awful, but reflects the aging LA transplant population more than it does the scenery. Luckily, after admittedly growing a bit discouraged, I found a duo that changed my tune: Sister John Angela.
The band is comprised of upright bassist Janie Cowan and resonator guitarist Steeve “Smitty” Smithie, and while neither is originally from the desert, their music is born out of years living in it. As soon as I started listening to their sophomore album Easy Keeper, I knew I had finally found what I’d been searching for. Upon hitting play, a lone guitar note calls out, a bass responds, and the two quickly become entangled in an intricate and mesmerizing tango. It’s the start of a story, but reveals only an outline. The dissonant blues of the title track feel tighter but similarly undetermined, achieving an impressively vague world building that is incredibly compelling. It allows the music to authentically reflect the space it lives in without prescribing rules for life within it. This is true metaphorically and literally, as the performances are as free as the feelings they evoke.
The record is packed with double bass drones, twangy textures and an ever choppy and loosely unraveling set of improvisations. It’s anchored in blues but shrouded in textured effects, thrillingly combining passionate sonic and technical experimentation. By returning to familiar but ear grabbing bowed and plucked melodies, Cowan and Smitty build a foundation for wild soundscapes to overwhelm then dissipate. Sometimes the atmospheres are underpinned by tight basslines, as is the case on tracks like “Camp” and “See,” while just as often the arrangements hang as looser abstractions, like on “Intermission” and “Dogbite.” “Obsidian” is perhaps the sweetest cut of the bunch, with a recurring melody that could pass as a nursery rhyme if it weren’t still occasionally interrupted by an unexpected tension. The album is wild and unpredictable, and embodies a mysterious feeling that pervades the desert but is difficult to put into words. Listening to it has helped me to understand the space I’m learning to exist in.
Maybe it’s the uncertainty in the drumless rhythms mirroring my feeling of being untethered. Maybe it’s the dark atmosphere giving rise to western outlaw energy. Above all, I think my attraction to Sister John Angela lies in the unbound nature of their compositions. Their work feels complete yet not fully written, gesturing at the unexpected possibilities I moved to discover. Its textures are musically inspiring and its spirit is invigorating. Its roughness is refreshing and its minimalism is essential. In a wasteland of washed up cover bands, Sister John Angela is the first sign of life.
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