AYAHUASCA

Pelt are a noisy, folksy, psychedelic drone band formed in 1993 in Richmond, Virginia. At the start Pelt were a guitar driven noise/drone band, somewhere in the same vein as Thurston Moore solo works or The Dead C. Pelt soon started to incorporate and ingest Indian raga and American primitive folk/Appalachian folk into their droney, noisy, psychedelic guitar driven brew. Thus culminating in this massive and challenging 2 CD offering, the appropriately named Ayahuasca. A release which collects various pieces composed between 1999 and 2001. Also, before we jump in, Ayahuasca is a psychedelic drink made from the Banisteriopsis Caapi vine and the Psychotria Viridis shrub, used in South America for ages, primarily in rituals and for medicinal reasons, so buckle up.

Both CDs pack in over an hour plus of primitive, Raga/Middle Eastern tinged, alchemical droning psych folk, with a few transmorphed traditional songs sprinkled within. The first CD opens up with two long pieces, True Vine and Deer Head Apparition. True Vine languidly drones along on various scrapping guitar and hurdy-gurdy emanations while (I presume) an esraj weaves, warbles, and whines amongst the metallic scrapings, but a little after the halfway point the drone really shapes up into something more foreboding and ominous. This then drops you into the longest piece across both CDs, the monstrous Deer Head Apparition. Opening with some nearly evil sounding electronic droning while some strings are tepidly, unsurely and unsteadily flit and rasped along, just barely avoiding being subsumed. Slowly the grinding drones and acoustic plunkings increase intensity, teasing a fall into nearly full blown noise assault of crackled and sizzling electric guitar feedback before eventually cooling off. This devolves into a void of lightly scratched and buzzed, bowed and plucked strings, random metallic and/or wooden thunks, intermittent cymbal hits, and heathenish yet subdued and gloaming electronic feedback drones, a sequence almost approaching musique concrete at times. After this ultra-noisy yet blissful affair, Pelt offer their take on two traditional folk songs, The Cuckoo and Bright Sunny South (here Deep Sunny South). The version covered of The Cuckoo is Clarence Ashley's version, which is somewhat mashed together with another Trad. Folk song, Jack Of Diamonds. Enthusiastic banjo picking carries and buoys The Cuckoo over a field of buzzing, droning strings, while the vocals are set down amongst the dirt and grasses, a bit flat and muted. Deep Sunny South is the most traditional song yet, mostly dropping the droning aspects (though if you listen close you can hear a bit of soft murmuring chord organ) for layered acoustic guitar and banjo, vocals still a bit subdued yet less buried. Everything in these two songs gives the picture of sitting on the porch of an old house in the Appalachian mountains, watching grasshoppers and bees fly around a nearby field or the occasional car go by, while the sun warmly blasts down. A Raga Called John ? Part I rounds out the first album and a return to longer improvised songs. A more complete melding of sustained drones and languorous acoustic guitar wanderings start us off, feeling like lemonade in audio form, tangy and sweet. This fades out around the half point, giving way too much more ominous and sinister droning, agitated banjo starts dancing and capering like a little goblin over top, while occasionally a cymbal tinkles from afar. Eventually the darkness slowly subsides and the song slowly fades out. The eyes are still watching though.

ROUND 2 CD 2

Starting off the second CD is The Dream of Leaping Sharks, hypnotic waves of murmuring and humming stringed and electric instruments lay the foundation for esraj and tanpura to weave and flow about. Gradual intensity is brought up before slowly cooling off into the void. Also one of the performers sneezes a few times which is kinda funny. Bear Head Apparition is up next, slowly fading in, forecasting a regress to darker trippings, starting off minimally with clangs of singing bowl and nocturnally evil electronic thrumming and rumbling, swelling steadily in power. Occasional scrapping and thumping sounds like something attempting entrance to your abode. Eventually the terror passes and your left again with nothing but minimalistic void howling for company. Will You Pray For Me? returns to the shorter, traditional format with buzzing and scrapped strings accompanied with dolceola thuddings drive the song forward. Mantra like vocals, and humming/chanting complete the mystical feel. The homestretch begins with the final parts of A Raga Called John. Part II, the next to longest composition, returns to the portentous and miasmic electronic feedback and drone fired fields. esraj and acoustic guitars let free to weave and warble, stumble and tumble amongst sonorous, burning stalks of metallic grinding, like hitting the peyote pipe inside an industrial incinerator. The feedbacking gradually subsides for a time, letting the acoustics more floating room. This does not hold; the incinerator has found more fuel; esraj enveloped and reduced to mad howling amongst vicious, shrieking electric feedback. The teased fall into full blown noise assault in Deer Head Apparition has come to fruition. This eventually peters out, exhausted of all fuel. An extended ending of band members murmuring and yammering after the song is over is included with some hemming and hawing about composition, but my favorite bit here being one of the group exclaiming "Pat, close that fuckin' door, the cats!". Part III ends this massive trip on an uplifting American Primitive, John Fahey detoxification, acoustic guitar and banjo dripping and melting in the heat of the sun, spiced with heady buzzings of tanpura. A pure sonic incarnation of sitting out on the porch watching the sun peel the paint off everything, a perfect landing back into reality.

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