Sun Araw THE SADDLE OF THE INCREATE

[Sun Ark/Drag City; 2017]

Rating: 4/5

Styles: poetry, deep psyche, trail blazing, minimalism
Others: On Patrol, 12 Golden Country Greats, “Lonesome Cowboy Burt”

Cowgirl says to the other cowgirl, “Hey, other cowgirl, is this a joke?” The sheriff nods her cap to the waitress and a courtesy of floral. Near asleep, a drifter: a head of cattle and some map whisking away from her hand. Along the prairie afloat, that old, sand-stained, sun-dried parchment of directions. Against a cactus’ left bicep spikes this map that burns into plumes of fumes. Spurs attached to the feet of our narrator tapping bones; strikes a chord. Sun Araw inhales the rest of this map and hallucinates a pathway to: THE SADDLE OF THE INCREATE.

Navigation
A crystal ball
A mystic
A like-mind
A star; A trail of stars
“A Golden Boot”
A strut into
A

Saloon for just a second or two…

“Hey, okay, so this is a temporal chord. Okay, yes, let it strike as much as possible. It’s like a pressure that happens like a headache? You enter a sanitaria thinking it was some new taco joint and in a Los Angeles you’ve never been to: all parts. Legitimately lost with all these familiar bits and pieces in sight, but every headlight is a cop at night. And this here sheriff — OH, SHIT! You’re the sheriff! You’re talking out loud to yourself.” Sheriff, are you okay? Are you talking to yourself? the deputy asks. Shit yeah she talking to herself; look at that gaze, and her cigarette smells funny, like *crack* and in BIG cartoon letters CRACK is splayed across the prisoner’s face, “A skin-headed, snake-bite of a motherfucker that’s as hick as the family this killer cannibalized.” I didn’t eat the whole family.

Canyon

Precipice off the beaten path that y’all’s party beat-in on the way here. Travel a straight and narrow of colors completely mutating A soundtrack of Sun Araw’s triumphant continuum:

Δ the minimal binding of only a handful of tracks, blended
♠ trying something new, no matter how kitschy
∇ when you thought Zappa or Miles Davis took things too safe
∂ communication to and through music without complete direction
Β clever call-and-response transposed in an evolution of harmony
∅ straight-chill in territory of finding one’s sell

It’s morning. Harness in. Strap up. Ride on out brave into today.

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