Joseph Allred – New Jerusalem (2023)    


Review:
Joseph Allred has built an impressive career out of guitar albums that don’t really sound like guitar albums. That’s a slightly glib way of saying that they are a significantly talented guitarist who is able and willing to move beyond the perceived constraints of their instrument. In concrete terms, this has meant that previous albums have encompassed minimalism, old-time Americana, fingerpicked folk and a delicate, personal kind of mysticism, all of which exist in overlapping circles that contribute to a large and holistic body of work. The actual number of solo records Allred has released is open to debate – their estimate is twenty-two – but what is unquestionable is their commitment to an idiosyncratic but consistent aesthetic: wherever Allred’s forays take them, they are always anchored to a highly developed and recognisable sound, which has as much to do with an ear for melody and a penchant for the weird as it does with a particular guitar-playing style. That said, New Jerusalem initially feels like something of a departure. Where previous albums were built like webs, this one is more like an edifice. It’s evident right from the opening track, New Jerusalem (What Is and Was and Will Ever Be), an instrumental where the sound rears up like a rough-hewn rock, five minutes of bowed and plucked strings, clattering percussion, and eerie whooshes and howls. If the title points toward a utopian ideal, the music is more anxious and in a state of flux: it is as if Allred is moving convulsively towards something long wished-for rather than existing comfortably in it. On its surface, New Jerusalem has an almost cultish feel to it. That can be traced to Allred’s lyrical inspirations – Buddhist scripture and verses from the Bible are cut up and spliced together with surreal imagery and vatic or gnomic utterances – but also to the delivery. Their Tears Become Pearls is a spoken monologue, building up a persuasive quasi-religious power through Allred’s intense, dramatic vocals. There are elements of David Tibet in there, and perhaps Robin Williamson’s more mystical offerings in the Incredible String Band. But this album is nothing if not diverse, and there is a quick change of pace with Gathering Flowers For the Master’s Bouquet, a wasted country song that recalls Trembling Bells or Gene Clark if he’d pursued spirituality rather than class-A drugs. Flowers and plants provide potent symbols of personal growth and regeneration throughout the album. What Strange Flowers Grow Here – which augments the alt-folk with DIY prog flourishes – approaches surreal landscapes in a transcendental manner while The Orchard is a tuneful country-folk piece with Edenic overtones, and A Grain of Wheat layers rapturous semi-spoken lyrics over sheets of instrumentation and clattering percussion. Regardless of the tonal shift that New Jerusalem represents for Allred, it is still an album that resonates on many of the same thematic frequencies as their earlier work. Their back catalogue can almost be read as a single theological discussion (though I hasten to add that it is much more than that), and the theological thread runs through this record too. Wine Song, the closing track, is a case in point, coming across like a synthesis of earthly and divine pleasures. Even in the instrumental tracks, like the languid psych-prog of Reprise (A Vision), have their part to play in the discourse, creating shimmering soundscapes that are devotional or visionary in their tone but still retain a very human heart. A key to this is Allred’s method of recording: they played and recorded everything themselves, and this level of control enables quick shifts between the cosmic and the cosmopolitan and results in a multilayered album that is often intriguingly dense but never far away from a state of euphoria. — by Thomas Blake at klofmag


   


Track List:
01 - New Jerusalem (What Is and Was and Will Ever Be)
02 - Their Tears Become Pearls
03 - Gathering Flowers for the Master's Bouquet
04 - A Grain of Wheat
05 - What Strange Flowers Grow Here
06 - The Orchard
07 - Reprise (a Vision)
08 - Wine Song


Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk
Origin: Crawford, Tennessee, USA  
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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