GOT MUSIC NEWS? MUSIC@SEVENDAYSVT.COM
REVIEW this Rob Voland, Wide Open Sky
to an altered state. And that’s not code for Hey, get high and listen to this record. I mean, do what you want, but what I’m talking about is music that alters moods. Music works its magic when it slows you down and pulls you out of everyday life, even for only three minutes or so.
Wide Open Sky excels in that regard. From the panoramic grandeur and slide guitar of “Untitled, With Coyotes” to the lo-fi folk of “Eye to Eye,” the record plays out like one long reverie. In keeping with the rest of Voland’s catalog, the Burlington musician’s latest effort features only sounds he made himself, which might account for the album’s cohesive, dreamlike tone. Making music that leans into atmosphere can backfire without clever arrangements and songwriting variance. Fortunately, Voland attends to both throughout the 11 songs, never allowing the energy to stray too far in any direction. The sequencing is equally masterful, with each song feeling like its own selfcontained chapter. The title track is an R.E.M.-on-codeine rocker that sets the tone but not the pace. Voland’s third full-length record is, in many ways, his best. 2018’s Quality
Loneliness was a stark portrait of heartbreak, an auteur creating a testament to isolation. 2020’s Afterglow had a little more edge to it, with flashes of Sonic Youth and Pavement. It isn’t accurate to say Wide Open Sky combines the energy of the two, but it does sound like a record with its past firmly referenced in the footnotes. By the time the final track, “Lake Mountain,” was wrapping up the record, I had begrudgingly begun my day. As the distorted, wah-wah-heavy guitar riffed over a frenetic drum beat, I could already feel the waves of everyday life coming in like high tide. Nonetheless, I was grateful for the half-hour-plus of transport Voland provided. Sometimes you just need music that takes you out of your body for a little while. Order Wide Open Sky on cassette or stream it at robvolandmusic.bandcamp.com.
Savage Hen, San Mateo), is a one-man score of NASA’s Christmas Day launch of the JWST, one of the most ambitious endeavors in the history of space exploration. “To me, the JWST represents our passion, willingness and ability as a species to push further a greater understanding of deep space,” Hagen wrote on the Golden Loaf’s Bandcamp page. “And even if we don’t know what’s out there, the inherent
thrill to observe beyond the naked eye is humbling and exciting.” Hagen compiled more than 40 minutes of audio and dialogue from NASA’s live broadcast of the launch and fashioned them into eight “songs” — though the album feels more like a continuous score. As various talking heads describe the stages of the telescope’s launch and separation from its Ariane 5 rocket, the album evokes the educational soundtracks of the ’80s. The beats are Casio-esque, and the synths beep and blip in such a way as to bring to mind William Shatner’s infamous meltdown in Airplane 2. The overall effect is both fitting and, eventually, charming. While “Carefully Watching Telemetry,” a nine-minute track featuring NASA experts saying things like “all parameters normal, four minutes of powered flight remaining,” isn’t exactly a single, Hagen’s score is intriguing — and, for the Gen X crowd, nostalgic. The moment “Trajectory Plot” kicks off the recording with its faded-in, twitchy beat, it’s hard not to flash back
to the teacher rolling in the TV/VCR combo, ready to hit you with an episode of “NOVA” or “The Voyage of the Mimi.” That specific retro-futuristic sound of what the ’80s thought we’d jam to in 2022 permeates the album, perhaps vindicating all those educational scores after all. As the technicians at the spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, celebrated during “Webb Separation,” the record’s vibe changes subtly. Stabs of synthesizer and an increasingly dancy beat move in as humanity sends its spyglass to the stars. Hagen channels wonder into his compositions and lets the scientists do the talking. The final track is a six-minute message from NASA administrator Bill Nelson. “This telescope is a time machine that is going to take us back to the very beginnings of the universe,” Nelson says. “We are going to discover incredible things that we never imagined. The impossible becomes possible.” Listen to The James Webb Space Telescope Launch at thegoldenloaf. bandcamp.com.
(SELF-RELEASED, CASSETTE, DIGITAL)
The ice across my bedroom window caught sunlight like a mirror, and a beam woke me up at what I frankly consider a rude hour. I’m not exactly sure what happened next, as I was still pulling myself out of a dream, but somehow I turned on the music that I’d fallen asleep listening to. “E-bow,” the seventh track on Rob Voland’s Wide Open Sky, spilled out of the AirPods still in my ears. Both confused by the indie rock seemingly manifesting on its own and feeling immediately in tune with Voland’s screeching lead guitar, I sat up, vibing way too hard at such an hour. Perhaps it’s odd to lean into a record the same moment one wakes up, but something in Voland’s music lends itself
The Golden Loaf, The James Webb Space Telescope Launch (SELF-RELEASED, DIGITAL)
There are terms for the sensations experienced by those who have traveled to space. Coined by author Frank White in 1987, the Overview Effect is a cognitive shift that astronauts such as Michael Collins and cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin have felt after witnessing Earth from outer space. In 2020, anthropologist Deana Weibel came up with a similar term, the Ultraview Effect, whereby astronauts feel intense awe while looking upon vast, open star fields. There is a sense of both the Overview and Ultraview effects on the new album by the Golden Loaf, fittingly titled The James Webb Space Telescope Launch. The project, a side hustle for Burlington aesthete and massively productive musician Matt Hagen (the High Breaks,
GET YOUR MUSIC REVIEWED:
C HRI S FARN S W O RT H
C HRI S FARN S W O RT H
ARE YOU A VT ARTIST OR BAND? SEND US YOUR MUSIC! DIGITAL: MUSIC@SEVENDAYSVT.COM; SNAIL MAIL: MUSIC C/O SEVEN DAYS, 255 S. CHAMPLAIN ST., SUITE 5, BURLINGTON, VT 05401
Say you saw it in ... SEVEN DAYS JANUARY 12-19, 2022
57