Daniel Bachman – Axacan
Three Lobed Recordings – 7 May 2021
I have recently discovered the wonderful music Joshua Abrams makes with his Natural Information Society collective. The lengthy repetition and meditative quality of Abrams’ music can certainly be considered alongside Daniel Bachman’s recent work, particularly 2018’s The Morning Star, which moved away from purely solo guitar music into a more experimental sound foraging style, juxtaposing drawn out guitar compositions with field recordings and drones. Axacan continues in this vein but is a more focused album than The Morning Star, with the project taking its name from the earliest Spanish colony settling around the Chesapeake Bay in what is now Virginia. The deep thunder and abrupt shattering of glass sounding the end of Accokeek Creek is a stark hint as to the dreadful fate of the founders, but the album as a whole is a more pensive and far-reaching exploration of Bachman’s home state (all sounds were recorded in Virginia), with radio footage, and field recordings given as much room as instruments.
Year of the Rat is one of only a few purely solo guitar songs and it demonstrates the space Daniel brings into his playing these days, quite a shift from much of his older pieces. I’m not sure whether he has yet switched to a mentioned thumb and index finger only style of picking, but Year of the Rat is patient and intimate, with Daniel’s breathing audible in places and plenty of gaps between heavily thumbed and sparsely plucked notes. Further on, Coronach is closely related to Year of the Rat, but with more attack and urgency, particularly in the second half. The space is still there, as is Daniel’s absolute control of pacing, a quality that elevates him among solo guitarists. Jack Rose was another player who demonstrated such control and confidence and he is considered a god among the solo guitar elite. Best of the three is closing track Transmutation, which combines the subtlest of drones with a looping bird call and a calmly picked, meandering guitar part. This song has a front porch quality and its relaxed and soothing nature, as well as the quiet assuredness of the music, lends it a certain magic.
Accokeek Creek introduces the album with Daniel’s now-signature cicada sound and the same track’s dusty guitar tune sounds and feels ancient, as does Big Summer’s. At Axacan’s core is Big Ocean 0, a sidelong undulant soundscape comprised of wave recordings blended with harmonium drones, coming straight after the bird song and car sound piece Ferry Farm. Big Ocean 0 is a dense and powerful listening experience, at once mesmerising and challenging, urgent and unyielding. But there is calm to be felt throughout the track in its rhythm and repetition and, even at nearly twenty minutes, it never outstays its welcome. Placed at the centre, this feels like the heart of Axacan, but there is so much more to be found throughout. It is difficult to truncate this album into a short review, but the overall result is a sprawling, painstakingly created record by a progressive artist that will take many listens to fully digest. Axacan is Daniel Bachman’s most accomplished work yet.
Order via Bandcamp: https://threelobed.bandcamp.com/album/axacan
Order via ProperMusic | Norman Records