Daniel Bachman - When the Roses Come Again (2023)

Artist: Daniel Bachman

Album: When the Roses Come Again

Year: 2023

Label: Three Lobed Recordings

A lovely acoustic-electro dialog--American primitive meets minimalist modernism. Bachman embraces musical contradictions--"When the Roses Come Again" is born of improvisation and spontaneity, culled from day-long recording explorations, and mixed afterwards to excavate haunting ambient soundscapes. As the title indicates, this is an album about cycles, of death and eventual rebirth, fittingly indebted to folk traditions while exploring the sounds in exciting new ways. Acoustic guitars, banjos, fiddles, and mouthbows co-exist along electronic manipulations, shimmering reverbs, and other echoing noises.

The album opener, "Neath The Shadow, Down The Meadow," blips and beeps and hidden underneath, a guitar. Introduces the counterpoint of technologies that will form the discourse of the album. It abruptly cuts to the next track, "Leaves Lying On Each Side." Bells resound like a call across the hills for an impending ceremony; a drone rises in the background, like a noise-choir, while above that is the recitation of pizzicato plucked strings. 

Perhaps because of the electro/acoustic duality, I seemed to listen to interpret much of the album as binaries and conversations, not only in terms of the sounds but also in terms of the song sequence. The midpoint of the album was more than just the middle, but pair of meditative centerpieces that re-articulated the album's journey, where it had been and where it was going. "Till the Roses Come Again" is a beautiful duet for banjo and manipulated ambience, honors the acoustic instrument. Next, on "As I Wander, I Will Ponder (On A Happy By And By)," the mouthbow is taken into otherworldly directions, veering into surreal, almost noise territory, before returning to the solitary echo of the instrument's natural sound.

The album concludes with a pair of songs that bring a nice sense of closure. "All Their Sadness Turned to Gladness" embodies the tonal extremes of the album, beginning with acoustic sounds, evolves into electronic sounds, and ultimately merge into harmonious union. It flows seamlessly into the final song, "Now the Roses Come Again," which starts with an acoustic guitar over a drone and an almost industrial percussion beat in the background. The album is very much structured like a journey, and this feels like the perfect concluding note--not the end of a journey, but like the album has reached a new starting point for future sounds, the growth alluded to in the album's title.

https://threelobed.bandcamp.com/album/when-the-roses-come-again