ninehertz

I sit down to listen to our promo copy of Abronia’s new album Shapes Unravel for the first time during the day when I’m later going to see Haress play their beautiful psych folk drone in a Tudor House venue – it makes for a lovely companionship between the music of the day. Abronia have been long known to us via their connection with UK label Cardinal Fuzz (back in play here alongside Feeding Tube Records), with stunning earlier albums like The Whole of Each Eye and Map of Dawn still fondly recalled.

This new album sees them heading deeper into their natural folk and spaghetti western psyche, the (admittedly slight) stoner rock inflections present earlier seemingly now long gone. Tracks exist purely in this manner, or combined with varying levels of psychedelic colour and krautrock eclecticism. New Imposition opens and provides an instant, wonderful imagination-stoking vision through beautifully delicate instrumentation, perfect vocals, wild folk and psych in harmony, painting vibrant pictures.

There are moments of Velvet Underground cool and others venturing into pastoral folk and gentle drones, imaginations of the countryside reinforced through wind instrument additions. On Gemini, so entranced did I find myself I was dreaming of an otherworldly planet, albeit in pastoral setting, such as from an Ursula K. Le Guin novel.

It makes for a calming, friendly accompaniment to your day, the multi-instrument additions – flutes, saxophone, violin and more – clearly inspiring your imagination to take over as you listen. It is a natural evolution for Abronia, an album that makes you happy a central feature of its experience.