Time is relative, man. It’s cyclical or it’s linear? It’s absolute or it’s abstract? It’s definitely a tricky matter, but psych-rockin’ power trio King Buffalo doesn’t care. Their releases ignore the industry’s prescribed timetable. They create, they share. Since forming in 2013 in the land of ice and snow (aka Rochester, New York), guitarist/vocalist Sean McVay, bassist Dan Reynolds, and drummer Scott Donaldson have already released three EPs, and two full-length LPs.
This time … we’re sharing a track from the band’s next album, Dead Star, due on March 20. “Eta Carinae” is a psycho-blues acid trip with sonic chemistry that exists in 2020 and 1971 simultaneously. But before taking the track’s twisted trip, how about some background?
The bulk of King Buffalo’s bountiful heavy-blues cosmic journeys began with their first full-length album, Orion, in 2016. That title track exuded the band’s m.o.: darker Pink Floyd “Echoes” vibes with eventual punishment that echoes the tectonic-plate-shifting power of fellow muscle-trio Sleep. KB may never go full doom, often subbing in hazier psychedelic strokes for monotone riffs, but they can still rumble with the heaviest. Orion’s “Goliath Pt. 1” and “Goliath Pt. 2” strongly showcase Jekyll-and-Hyde stoner tendencies that teeter between Live at Pompei and Master of Reality.
The tasty leftovers of the 47-minute Orion provided the feast of the EP Repeater, released in early 2018. The three-song collection would be a perfect soundtrack to a time-lapsed, mountain-climbing video. The expansive 13-minute opener starts calmly, like any ascent, but as it continues, things begin to speed up, intensify, and grow darker before a crescendo-ing crash of celebration on the summit.
Later in 2018, the trio released their sophomore album Longing to Be the Mountain. The pace on LTBTM is much like the smooth cadence and perpetual hypnotic groove of hip-hop star NAS—it’s deliberate, powerful, and always bobbing forward. Space is much more prevalent than on Orion. If that debut album felt like a collection of short stories, LTBTM came through as a cohesive narrative that flowed like a novel.
And Dead Star—which is more white dwarf than black hole—is their fourth and most ambitious EP, with over 30 minutes of rock gestated and nurtured from the LTBTM sessions. Self-recorded in late 2019 and early 2020, it is packed with some of band’s boldest risks.
“In the early stages of Dead Star, we made the decision to make a strong commitment to experimentation,” explains guitarist/vocalist McVay, “from exploring different tunings and textures, to tweaking the songwriting processes. We’re extremely proud of these recordings, and feel it’s some of our most ambitious work.”
The results reveal McVay’s most-urgent and aggressive vocals, scene-changing time signatures, and the perfect instrumental oddball, “Ecliptic.” (Think of a Stranger Things soundtrack devised by John Carpenter.) New intricacies like these, added to their staunch balance of steamrolling flow and boundless atmosphere, forge a fresh chapter in these space cadets’ saga.
“Eta Carinae” is the glue of side B of Dead Star. It’s sandwiched between the ’80s synth-centered “Ecliptic” and the closing title track whose acoustic intro washes into a cascading, crashing conclusion. The busy and groovy middle of the journey of “Eta Carinae” travels through two different droning passages, following a droning (of course!), syncopated short-delay-guitar-opening over the busy rhythm section. The song eventually transforms into a head-bobbing interplay of guitar and drums that conjures Sabbath’s “War Pigs.” This section builds until McVay unleashes a short solo that fades into a droning outro powered by chugging palm-muting.
King Buffalo already has a spring tour on the books for the U.S. in March and April. You can find out about the rest of their plans and releases by visiting their website.
Check out the band's Rig Rundown filmed in November 2019.
Bluesman Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is an American treasure. The 72-year-old is the foremost torchbearer of a deep and esoteric style of Mississippi Delta music associated with the town where he has spent his entire life: rural Bentonia. He’s also the proprietor of the nation’s longest operating juke joint, the Blue Front Café, which his parents established there in 1948. Holmes learned the Bentonia blues style at the side of its originators, including Henry Stuckey and the more famous Skip James, who had a renaissance during the ’60s folk blues revival. Every year in June, Holmes celebrates the music that’s in his DNA by hosting the Bentonia Blues Festival on his family’s farm.
But there’s a less formal celebration every weekend, when the Blue Front stays open late, cold beer flows like rain, and the music gets loud, raucous, and unpredictable. That’s the spirit that producer Dan Auerbach has captured on Holmes’ new album, Cypress Grove.
The song we’re premiering, “All Night Long,” is a robust, free-ranging original built along the thorny backbone of Holmes’ guitar, with interjections by Auerbach, adding fills and commentary, and an essay on hot-butter slide by Marcus King. The album is packed with 6-string highlights, built around Holmes’ rusty freight-train rhythms and tonal surprises, like the feedback drone Auerbach makes sing like an Indian tanpura on the title track.
In Nashville’s Easy Eye Sound studio, Auerbach and Holmes run through the bones of one of Holmes’ durable culled-from-life numbers before showing it to the studio band and firing up the tape recorder.
Just because the album was recorded at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound studio in Nashville doesn’t mean it’s not authentic down-home Mississippi blues. The Black Keys’ frontman explains his modus operandi: “I like to work with people who inspire me, and Jimmy inspires me. Jimmy’s music is rough and tumble, and it can shatter a lot of preconceptions purists have about Delta blues. At the Blue Front, you never know who’s going to show up, or what instrument they’ll be playing. There could be three guitars, bass, drums, mandolin, and fiddle one weekend, and then the next weekend a banjo player or a saxophonist shows up. So the sound always reflects the ages and experiences and styles of the musicians who are there, and that keeps it fresh, modern, and totally unpredictable.”
In addition to Dan Auerbach and Marcus King, Holmes’ new album includes contributions from Mississippi blues bass MVP Eric Deaton and drummer Sam Bacco, who is a percussionist in the Nashville Symphony.
If you’d like to know more about Bentonia blues and Jimmy “Duck Holmes,” check out our interview with him from September 2016. And you can also dig into Ryan Lee Crosby’s Bentonia Blues lesson from September 2019.