The release defies simple description, with folk and drone meeting a modest grandeur that would be at home in the neoclassical canon. Like all Lost Tribe Sounds releases, it’s music that’s meticulously planned and executed, dense compositions that are enmeshed with themes and narrative arcs despite their wordless nature. The vibe is difficult to pin down – at times mystical and hallucinogenic, others downright ominous. As Cartwright describes, “Recorded & mixed over a period of two weeks whilst feeling the heat (both literally & politically) I opted for a threatening, even apocalyptic EP title. Saying that, I think most of these songs can offer up a tranquility to counteract the gravity of these uncertain times, a calm inside the eye of a storm.”

The title track introduces this thematic juxtaposition, and, despite the beautiful guitar work, darkness is never far away. Behind lurks a sound like the blare of a siren, as if warning of incoming terror, a tornado or air raid.

‘Seen As a Black Road’ bubbles with rustic guitar, coming across as sparse Americana until synths rise beyond like some spectral light in a desert sky. ‘The Good River’ wheezes and breathes its way to life, the percussion a steady pulse in the background, the 12-string guitar morphing into a mournful dirge. To my mind ‘Returnee’ sounds autumnal, the guitar dipping and swirling like a cascade of golden brown leaves, while ‘Overgrown Courtyard’ is dark and pensive, the rightly wound lead guitar tumbling over foreboding drone. The tape closes with ‘Passage Of Old’, which sounds morosely grand and somehow more European than the other songs on the album, like the theme of some beleaguered monarch watching his kingdom burn from a hilltop.

You can get I Can See the Smoke now on cassette or digital download from Lost Tribe Sound, via the Seabuckthorn Bandcamp page.

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His latest album, Ill Tides, is the first in a new series of cassettes from label Lost Tribe Sound, inspired by the label HQ’s move from Arizona to Wisconsin. The series, entitled Dead West, is intended to “focus on music built for exploring and soundtracking your environment, whether you’re deep in the middle of lush woodlands, or just laying back at home with rested eyes”. Cassettes were chosen for both practical and aesthetic reasons, meaning not only will the music sound great on tape, with all of its quirks and so-called limitations, but the quick turnover time allows fans to get their hands on the music much sooner than they would with a vinyl release.

Ill Tides begins with ‘Ghosts in the Gale’, a song with a perfectly descriptive title, the atmosphere a slow roil like the grasping hands of tortured souls. A plaintive guitar line eventually enters, bringing an air of quiet sadness like the calm after a disaster, the feeling of watching from the cliff edge as the remains of a vessel are brought in on the tide. Follow up ‘Recoiled’ is equally atmospheric, the background ambience almost like wordless voices from some nameless gloom or shifting mists on a strange and unexplored shore.

It’s practically impossible to give a comprehensive review of Fritch’s work. As with any piece of art, every listener will take something different, the images conjured into their mind unique and personal, though for us at least the ocean is a recurring feature. The title track is strangely elegant, the percussion bogged down and sluggish but transcended by soaring strings. Its not hard to imaging it as a travelling song, to-ing and fro-ing on the swells of a dark and ominous sea.

The knotted threads of ‘At Odds’ give way to an eerie siren call, the closest thing to vocals on the record, before ‘A Tense Spiral’ sounds exactly as advertised, a taut and escalating track that conjures images of a thousand circling seabirds, a harbinger of an oncoming storm. ‘The Fog of Our Primes’ then rises out of the murk, quivering and quavering like a water spout, while ‘Evaporate’ has a crystalline sound, perhaps the soundtrack to a new and strange land, one of frozen rivers and mountains of ice. Finale ‘Furthest Shore’ ends proceedings with something that sounds like the soundtrack to some far-flung northern island, all rugged hills and dagger-sharp outcrops and a howling wind. It is a fitting finish that captures the beauty in the harsh and unforgiving force of nature.

As with all of Fritch’s music, Ill Tides is a surprisingly cinematic experience, narratives snaking through each song despite their wordless nature. You can get it now on tape or download from Lost Tribe Sound via the William Ryan Fritch Bandcamp page.

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