Seattle-based Will Sol is Prana Crafter, a musician and
songwriter who straddles the blurry line between psychedelic folk and kosmische
drone a la Six Organs of Admittance, and who channels Neil Young & Matt
Valentine with his unique vocalizations and six-stringed deftness. Sol’s been active in the psychedelic
sub-underground for a few years now, with efforts for esteemed labels such as
Eiderdown, Deep Water Acres and Beyond Beyond is Beyond, but it took three
labels to harness the hallucinatory energy of Enter the Stream. This psychotropic
slice of modern folk arrives courtesy of the Cardinal Fuzz, Sunrise OceanBender and Eggs in Aspic imprints.
Sol employs multiple elements to weave his gravity-defying
sound worlds. In addition to a high
register croon and multiple layers of fluid guitar, there are synths, singing
bowls, field recordings, drums and other percussion threaded into the eight
pieces presented here. Thematically,
nature and the spirit are intertwined. Lush
energies are kindled immediately as the eponymous opening track unfurls.
Introduced with a gong hit and book-ended by field recordings
of rushing water, a simple strummed guitar and repeated lyric belie the
cerebellum-shattering trip that comprises the two succeeding tracks. “Moon Through Fern Lattice” and “Mycorhizzal
Brainstorm” occupy the more trance-inducing edge of the Prana Crafter spectrum. Thick contrails of juicy synthesizer waft
overhead like curlicues of colored smoke as Sol’s guitar writhes melodically. A miasma of drone prevails until “The Spell” introduces
a more grounded sort of reverie.
The Crazy Horse-inspired “Old North Wind” shifts the proceedings
homeward with its loping rhythm section and sparsely ornamented arrangement. It fades into a pair of shamanic drone pieces,
which provide a feverish dreamlike drift.
“At the Dawn” closes out the proceedings with an air of melancholia, and
the album ends as it began, the rushing water this time fading into echoed
whispers of ‘nothing’.
Dream with the mountains in a kingdom outside of time with
Prana Crafter; Enter the Stream is
available in all three physical formats from the labels involved, and digitally
via Bandcamp.