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Premiere: Hunters Chorus - "Wish"

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Hunters Chorus is a solo endeavor by composer and multi-instrumentalist Ramon Fermin, who also happens to be the lead guitarist of Sun Kil Moon for this current album cycle. Fittingly, Hunters Chorus' debut album Old Growler, a tribute to Ramon's late dog Jasmine, is dropping next month via Mark Kozelek's Caldo Verde Records. The instrumental album finds Ramon on guitar and bass, his friend Haig Shirinian on drums, and Jack Shirley (best known for his work on Deafheaven's Sunbather) on the boards.

Today we're bringing you the track "Wish," which is one of the album's harder rocking spots. Some pieces on Old Growler, such as the intro and closer, are serene soundscapes of unaccompanied electric and acoustic guitar, whereas a track like "Wish" is very much in the spirit of late-period Red House Painters' heaviest moments. Obviously this song is without Mark's aching baritone, but it occupies that liminal space between classic rock and post-rock that some of Blue Guitar and Old Ramon did... the title of the latter is now a kind of funny coincidence.

Just reading about Old Growler's concept, one might expect something along the lines of the first Silver Mt. Zion album and brace for the waterworks, but "Wish" offers something quite a bit more upbeat. It's a solid piece of instrumental rock, and the anthemic guitar leads and soloing that emerge in its last phase have me looking forward to Ramon's contributions to this November's Sun Kil Moon album. His fingerprints are certainly all over the latest single, "Linda Blair."

Old Growler gets unleashed on October 19 and can be pre-ordered here.

-Austen

Mark Kozelek - Mark Kozelek

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Mark Kozelek with Ben Boye and Jim White - "The Black Butterfly"

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Here's the second single from Mark Kozelek's upcoming collaborative album with Ben Boye and Jim White, which will apparently contain the Koz's sixth and seventh discs of 2017. Lyrically, "The Black Butterfly" is a step up from the previously released "House Cat," with Mark spending the first portion of the song conveying a dream he had about Elliott Smith. Then the track gets Beefheartian with an off-kilter, seemingly improvised section; though after hearing Jim's drumming on the Yellow Kitchen cut "Daffodils" (and considering his free-form work with the Dirty Three), I can't say that's really out of left field.

I'm digging the dark vibe of this song overall, and am just curious at this point to hear how the whole album will come together. A full stream will go live on Sun Kil Moon's site on October 1, along with an interview about the project with producer Tony Visconti.