Franciscan Hobbies, The
Walls Are Stuck CD [MF13]

 

San Francisco's The Franciscan Hobbies return with their fourth full-length album (& second proper CD) of cooperative folk-noise & abstract nature processionals. Based around Thuja-explorers Glenn Donaldson, Loren Chasse & Rob Reger, this free-form musical body also encompasses another half-dozen friends from likeminded bands such as The Muons, The Buried Civilizations, Leaf Yard & The Shitty Listeners. The title Walls are Stuck was inspired by a quote from Pandit Pran Nath: ìInside, walls are stuck; outside, ideas fly in all directions.î The Hobbies have been known to put this into practice by taking their junk folkñinstruments, boomboxes & mini-discs outside, gathering in canyons, creek beds, backyards, and on porches & beaches.

The Franciscan Hobbies are part of the expansive Jewelled Antler forest of bands & projects. Jewelled Antler Co-founders Glenn Donaldson & Loren Chasse have been involved in creating over 25 CD-Rís, CDís, records & tapes, ranging from straight field recordings to multi-layered psych-pop music to rumbling drones.

Glenn Donaldson also appears as The Ivytree, The Birdtree, The Skygreen Leopards, the Blithe Sons & a dozen others, recording for such labels as Catsup Plate, Jagjaguwar, Fat Cat, Family Vineyard, Emperor Jones & 267 Lattajja. Fellow Blithe Son, Loren Chasse records as OF & is also a member of The Child Readers & Coelacanth, with releases on Anomalous, Mallard Lake, Emperor Jones & Family Vineyard.

Praise for previous Franciscan Hobbies albums:
ìThe second album from this satellite of San Francisco's Jewelled Antler Collective is packed full of earth mystery, permeated by the smell bone fires and vegetative rites. The sound of rust-caked acoustic guitar and banjo dominates, while the ripple of earthworked gongs, tremulous sitar and percussion makes this the perfect soundtrack to a version of The Wicker Man performed by a group of California heads." - The Wire

ìStormier and more anarchic than other Jewelled Antler groupings, The Hobbiesí largely avoid the Wordsworthian rapture of Blithe Sons in favor of a sinisterly beautiful tangle of sounds. Masks and Meanings begins in tight focus ñ with a fevered spiral of eastern-sounding string picking ñ and is slowly broadened by the gentle clanging and wheezing of instruments.î ñ Dusted


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