16 September 2023

IMMATERIAL POSSESSION – Mercy of the Crane Folk (2023, LP/CD Fire Records)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Fire Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Green Vinyl

Format: CD, Album, Limited Edition

Release Date: 5 May 2023

Immaterial Possession is an Alternative Psych-Goth-Folkie quartet hailing from Athens, Georgia (USA), and “Mercy Of The Crane Folk” is their sophomore album released through Fire Records (their self-titled debut was released in 2020 through Cloud Recordings).

Their Bandcamp page states:

“Mercy Of The Crane Folk’ is the beautifully accomplished second album from Athens GA’s Immaterial Possession. A theatrical soundscape littered with subconscious flashbacks, retro keyboard flurries, wandering Morricone-esque guitar, and dreamy Sumac-like harmonies.
Featuring the ethereal eerie dream pop of former artist commune residents Cooper Holmes and Madeline Polites, with drummer John Spiegel and Elephant 6 descendant Kiran Fernandes (keyboards, clarinets, flutes). Additional contributions come from drummer Jon Vogt who can be heard on ‘Mercy Of The Crane Folk’ and ‘Birth Of Queen Croaker’.
It’s a haunting and immersive trip into the inner psyche of these nomadic soothsayers; a psychedelic dance party from a half-lit underground world; breathlessly eerie and all-consuming; a salubrious sojourn that sounds like nothing else. Filled with a kind of peculiar optimistic uncertainty that any quest to make sense of a drowsy recollection of simpler and far better times would have; ‘Mercy Of The Crane Folk’ is soft and serene summoning up a fanciful folkloric place where, undoubtedly, the mysterious crane flock prosper”…

“Mercy Of The Crane Folk” contains 10 tracks equally divided into the 2 sides of the LP album. The opener “Chain Breaker” with its beautiful and perfectly executed melodic lines makes it impossible for the listener to resist and when Madeline Polites (is she Greek???) starts to sing with her sweet and addictive voice you catch yourself being seducted immediately, Sirens did the same to Ulysses! So, if an album makes you feel this way by the very first song then what in God’s Heaven should we wait next? “Mercy Of The Crane Folk” has an amazing gothic-like bassline accompanied by an even more amazing guitar melody and if you add the impressive male/female vocals and the adventurous keyboard scales, all these together drive the song into a psychedelically fancy and kind of ceremonial ground… “To The Fete” starts and you can recognize a cool garage-y attitude (at least to the start of the song), an attitude that a lot of modern Garage acts would Love to… A killer rhythm section, groovy keyboards, ethereal vocals, and an intriguing Sax sound create a heavenly-sent melodic background and all you wanna do is start dancing under the moonlight… “Medieval Jig” is a slower tune, a beauty of its own, a Folkie song flirting with Medieval colorful psych, a wonderful wandering piece of musical genius! “Siren’s Tunnel” indicates a guitar riff that comes straight out of the late ’60s LA Psych scene, there’s an imaginary Psych rhythm section making the track a bloody awesome psychedelically flavored dance anthem! An anthem that can indeed hypnotize you and lead you to wherever the beautiful seductive Siren wants… This could be the official Anthem-Song of the summer of 1969… er sorry… 2023… Side “B” opens with “Current In The Room”, a groovylicious semi-dance-a-delic Pop-Psych tune with a fascinating dreamy-like melody! “Ancient Mouth” is a short 2:06min cool dream-a-like poppy-psych tune with male vocals and quite adventurous despite its duration while “Cypress Receiver” is a slower track, a balladesque one with an epical marching slow beat and mesmerizing female vocals, it blends Psych, Pop, Folk, setting the scene back to the late West Coast 60s… The next one is my personal highlight, it’s an instrumental track called “Birth Of Queen Croaker”, dangerously trippy with a mind-expanding creepy-like edge, feels/sounds like you have just consumed a considerable amount of psychedelics and the gates of Eden are widely open, yes, that kind of psychedelically Mind Blowing!!! But, wait… There’s more! It seems that the previous TRIP continues on the last track of the album “Red Curtain”, this time Madeline lens her magical beautiful vocals under a psychedelically eerie scenery that changes from warm to cold, from dark to light, this is Modern Psychedelia with a very theatrical approach, while at the end the listener wants desperately to stay there, at the Garden, forever… under Siren Madeline’s spell… A Magical album, by Immaterial Possession, a band that knows how to create memorable intriguing melodic songs, one of the Best of 2023, definitely! Grab it! TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

A1	Chain Breaker	3:21
A2	Mercy of the Crane Folk	3:51
A3	To the Fete	4:20
A4	Medieval Jig	2:55
A5	Siren’s Tunnel	4:17
B1	Current In The Room	3:04
B2	Ancient Mouth	2:06
B3	Cypress Receiver	3:17
B4	Birth of Queen Croaker	4:51
B5	Red Curtain	5:45