Spahn Ranch
Thickly Settled

The acquisition of this LP at the time was serendipitous, the copy belonged to one of the owners of the record store, and his colleague, unaware of it, sold it... And here a world opens up that is almost impossible to describe because there is such celestial perfection, yet made on earth, that we are left mesmerized by such beauty. In 1987, for this Detroit band, the excuse lies in the classic instruments of rock, but in such a way that it evokes emotions we cannot name logically: we are flooded by something that transports us elsewhere.

Psychedelic mystic pop rock underground folk coexist and carry us into crystalline and purifying essences. The enchanted voice of Bob Sterner, who has been watching us from above for a decade, guides us through the psychic labyrinth of our mind, helping us find hidden pieces of our intimate selves, concealed and overshadowed by the ego. No less significant, in creating this indivisible amalgam, are the ancestral percussion of Odell Nails, the evocative guitar of Brad Horowitz, the hypnotic bass of Hobey Echlin: bells, ocarinas, mouth harmonicas, voices, and sounds perfect the astral crossing.

A confession so direct and pure in the absence of pain that it suspends us in a land of impersonal pleasure, thus not materially definable. Emotions are present but translated in a quantum way: the penetrability of invisible bodies surpasses the limitations of our biological vehicle, opening up to a hypnotic regression where unfamiliar sensations are experienced. The intertwining and sound atmospheres lull us in tension in a tangible and awe-inspiring dream zone: "nightmares dance with dreams."

The sonic fandango transports us directly to the psychic place of what happened, functioning like a time machine that annuls the spacetime deception. The record plays a celestial wonder that explains mirages and visions reported from cyclic past glories of us non-terrestrial humans, hinting with a veil of sadness and a touch of melancholy, that the evolutionary experience for some has never ceased. The golden age will return for everyone as it always has, even for the child on the cover that resides in each of us.

All the songs are so imbued with humanity that they occasionally become so emotionally overwhelming that they are barely tolerable: the terrible beauty that emanates from them wounds us, cleansing us. Aside from my serial skidding into celestial lands, the work in question surprises with its overall fullness and possesses that unpredictable thrill that arrives unexpectedly, making you glimpse that life is elsewhere. An unexpected ensemble that accompanies us through disappearances and reunions, suspensions, and resumptions for a sincere encounter with the Human.

Engraved on side A of the vinyl near the serial number we find: “Only the wisest of men can hear it...” and on side B: “...only the most foolish of men believe it.”

A devoted invitation to listen, I'll leave the link in the first comment. Take this “Trial”...