ON the Beat | Shoegazing and Other Musings Around the County

Nathan Sherwood Liang and Ana Smith, White Buffalo Land Trust | Photo Josef Woodard

Music of and About a Magical Landscape

Those of us who had yet to experience the magical plot of land that is the White Buffalo Land Trust, currently transforming Jalama Canyon Ranch into a “Center for Regenerative Agriculture,” got a lyrical and musical introduction to the essence of the place last Saturday. With the program called “Music of the Living Landscape,” Nathan Sherwood Liang, a composer-performed and sound artist from the Bay Area, capped off his six-week stint as artist-in-residence with a performance incorporating literal field recordings and tappings and his own musical explorations.

A small but rapt group of visitors was treated to a mobile feast of sound around the large and variegated property, music and landscape revelry, with savory foodstuffs supplied by Barbareño and the Santa Rita Hills–based Sandhi wine. As Ana Smith, director of programs and engagement, explained to the gathered throng down at “base camp,” “Nathan has been really engaging with this landscape in amazing ways.” As Liang himself explained, this was “a show about listening and appreciating the work being done here.”

Although unable to go on the entire three-hour tour/performance, I caught Liang’s piece called, aptly, Here, up in the “Saddle” area of the property, overlooking a rugged valley below. For this piece, he channeled live sounds from down in the ravine through his electronic set-up, adding a swirl of impressionistic synth chords to the mix.

It added up to a luminous blending of ambient music and an enchanted ambiance, in a preserved and protected corner of the 805.

Coarse Gold: “Show Must Go On” Report

Willie Nile, Tales from the Tavern | Photo Josef Woodard

And the “Show Must Go On” award of the season goes to … Willie Nile, whose Tales from the Tavern set last week bravely soldiered on, despite the rasp and range-defying challenge of a nasty head cold. He warned the packed Maverick Saloon crowd of his diminished vocal chops up front, saying, “I’m going to sound extra sexy tonight.” He later apologized for his “croaky-ass voice,” but, in fact, it gave some extra grit and determination to his musical brew.

Nile was returning to the Maverick stage in solo mode, rather than the full, full-bodied-band sound he brought here last year, but he manages to pump band-like energy into his well-strummed steel-string guitar and powerful vocals — however wizened and whiskeyed. His songbook flows with examples of his natural skill for slinging evocative lyrics and phrases both hook-ready and anthemic-leaning.

Shades of Dylan and Springsteen trickle through, but the Buffalo-born and long N.Y.C.-based singer has his own sound. He sings about America (“Wake Up, America,” “American Ride”) and his current hometown (“Streets of New York,” “New York at Night”) and pays respects to his family members, his wife, “Beautiful You,” and his now 108.5-year-old father, with “Irish Goodbye.”

Nile served as the sweet and potent final touch of the current and wondrous Tales from the Tavern series, inching up against its 25th anniversary next year. The spring season was a juicy one, with Steve Forbert, John Doe, Glen Phillips, Vonda Shepard, and Ordinary Elephant in the mix. More good goods to come, come fall.

Life According to Moodster Mark Kozalek

Mark Kozelek has been around. The shoegaze pioneer, of Red House Painters fame in the ‘90s and Sun Kil Moon from 2002 until now, has been in an agreeably navel-gazing, spoken-word mode in the current phase of his work. You can keep up with his life and times on albums such as last year’s All the Artist Live in LA (hear here), the title track of which bemoans the lost S.F. of his past years and the pleasures of his L.A. digs at present, with nods to fishing with dad.

Now comes the new EP Murals (hear here), the tour for which brings Sun Kil Moon to the Ventura Music Hall this Saturday, May 30. The latest release extends Kozelek’s current interest in spoken word, woven into his musical mesh, and represents further adventures in his signature mix of brooding, absurdity, autobiography (we think), and undercurrents of experimental songcraft.On the song “Oh, My Mother,” he sings “Oh my mother / I can’t wait to thank you / For opening my ears / To David Bowie’s ‘Changes’ / ’Somebody up There Likes Me’ / ’Golden Years’/ And helping me buy my wine rack’s last part.” Yes, thank you, Mark Kozelek’s mother.

Somehow, drifting through Kozelek’s discography through the years suspends any sense of fixed historical or musical scene references. It exists in its own time-space continuum, with touches of wry humor folded into the moody, brooding atmospherics.

Kozelek is one of those restlessly creative cult heroes still hard to get a handle on, in the best way. Just when you have him figured out, he shows up with an EP of glummed-down AC/DC covers, What’s Next to the Moon (there’s the moon again) (hear here) or a fascinating dip into pop standards, on Mark Kozelek Sings Favorites, where he gives us a fresh — and yes, suitably shoegaze-glazed — version of “Bring on the Clowns” (hear here). Leave it to Kozelek to bring out the innate and inner shoegazer in Stephen Sondheim.

TO-DOINGS:

This week’s recommended musical wanderings range from steamy fine blues, with the Santa Barbara Blues Society’s Mike Zito show, tonight, May 28, at the Carillo Rec Center, alt-bluegrass with gifted Sam Grisman (son of David) at the Lobero Theatre, on Thursday, June 4, and contemporary classical music by the Ensemble for Contemporary Music (ECM) at UCSB’s Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall on Tuesday, June 2.

In choral music fare, the options include the final concert of the season from the Santa Barbara Choral Society, “A Modern American Choral Collaborative,” at Trinity Lutheran Church on Sunday, May 31, and the Adelfos Ensemble’s “Enlightened Harmonies: a Celebration of Jewish Choral Music,” at the other Trinity church, Trinity Episcopal, on Tuesday, June 2.

Come summertime,the classical music landscape in the 805always kicks off with a bang, courtesy of the Ojai Music Festival, a rightfully world-renowned celebration of mostly contemporary music now reaching the ripe old age of 80, but with young spirits alive and well. This year’s big b-day bash is extra special, with the return of the great Finn-in-America Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director and featuring an enticing bounty of his music as composer. The festivities unfold around Ojai from June 11-14, but the buzz is building as June befalls us.