The Franciscan Hobbies - 'Walls Are Stuck' (Music Fellowship)

Sometime around 2005 I blinked and when my eyelids came back up, there was a ton of music being made that sounded not unlike the Franciscan Hobbies, a large ensemble connected to that small collective of bands in the Bay Area vicinity known as Jewelled Antler. Glenn Donaldson and Loren Chasse are both credited here and I'm not sure exactly how involved they were - full leaders, perhaps, or just bit players - but the sound of the Hobbies comes from the same open, melodic air that other Jewelled Antler bands (such as the Child Readers, Thuja, and the Blithe Sons) occupied. In fact, if you played any of those bands to me I'd struggle to tell them apart, but I suspect the musicians in these groups, which largely overlapped, wouldn't feel differently. The band names just become another form of organising the sound-image, just like the album name and titles of the songs, maybe? Anyway, Walls Are Stuck is an all-instrumental play-around in this soundworld, driven by largely acoustic instrumentation and lo-fi recording technologies. There are electroacoustic elements but only in the sense of a dictaphone tape warp (on 'Empty Hands', which is a lovely bit of concrete, using a decayed violin riff, which dissipates before wearing out its welcome) or delicate keyboard tinkles, dancing over the pulse (the sublime 'The Happy Burial'). There's usually some tape hiss or room vibe in the background, the sound of people walking around, instruments being picked up and put down, and an outdoor feel for very much of it. It's what I think of as the Jewelled Antler sound, one that has largely faded as the more pop-orientated projects of theirs (Skygreen Leopards, the Lovebirds) have become more serious, but one that I have a soft spot for because these are incredibly beautiful records to lose oneself in. The jams are obviously jamming, but when you listen to a track like 'Asmodeus', where different stringed instruments are plucked and bowed, the interplay is tentative and egoless, building up a common sculpture that is calming but not simple. Over in the UK at the same time, the Vibracathedral Orchestra was making a real clatter, similar in many ways (harmonic overtones, no central riff or show of musicianship, a sense of wonder) but still somewhat more attenuated towards a common pulse. The Franciscan Hobbies reject the easy groove and elevate the texture to the forefront. The result is lovely, and welcoming.