Review: Brad Frye ‘Reverberations From The American Southwest’
Now, here we have a record crafted in my very own backyard. Brad Frye – founder and owner of Desert Records, vocalist/guitarist of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s own riff-wielding desert doom power trio Red Mesa, and creator of the drone project Droni Eye Omi – has dropped his first full-on solo album, Reverberations From The American Southwest.
Frye’s origin story, if local legend is accurate, begins somewhere unspecified in the Northeastern United States. Being a fan of underground heavy music and all that entails, he looked to move to the American Southwest, where his desire to create desert rock in the actual desert could come to fruition. Ever the ambitious musician, he quickly settled and formed not only Red Mesa, but Desert Records as well. Serving as a vehicle for his own musical visions while also boasting a diverse roster of desert-centric artists, he established himself and his label as an eclectic presence in underground music. Having recently relocated to the Pacific Northwest, this release sees him looking to capture the sounds and vast energy of the New Mexico high desert.
Recorded entirely outside, Frye lugged his guitar, tube amp, pedalboard, and a Zoom H6 recorder to various locales outside of Albuquerque, capturing not only his mostly improvised, sparse guitar playing, but also the environmental sounds of this strange desert landscape.
Opener Cactus Wrench slowly creeps into consciousness with minimal guitar plucking that I would describe as ‘Western psychedelic.’ It is soon joined by the sound of birds, followed by an oncoming train which, paired with an ever-so-slight change in the guitar playing, adds a cool hint of potential danger. There is plenty of trippy Western atmosphere on The Immense And Bloodslaked Waste, as space is left between the picking and strumming with just a touch of effects added, making for a cool, mesmerizing experience.
Ghosts Along The Bosque (the Bosque being a wooded area running along the side of the Rio Grande River) creeps to life with a building, foreboding synth and the sound of footprints maneuvering through brush and undergrowth. The guitar, coupled with subtle effects, evokes feelings of a bright new day made ominous by those well-timed footsteps. This could easily have been used in a weird Western film score. The Raven Sees All finds spacey, modest plucking amplified by deliberate note choices, each one landing with emphasis. Combined with synth, it makes for an expansive listen that succeeds in evoking images of the desert.
The appropriately titled Merciless Sun takes this premise and sets controls for, well, the sun. Any human who has spent time on Hell’s front porch – otherwise known as Albuquerque during July and August – can practically feel the title. Here, a Reverend baritone guitar conjures sounds and energy that aurally reproduce the vast emptiness and sun-scorched earth through an awesome desert-Western psych twang and resounding effects.
deftly captures the sound, energy, vastness, and uniqueness of my home state…
Opening with cicadas singing and the sound of another oncoming train, Celestial Skies is a spacious desert psych track that again recalls a lost psychedelic Western soundtrack. Meanwhile, Three Gun is a spacey harmonica solo that sets up Desert Is As Desert Does. Possessing one of the louder guitar sounds heard thus far alongside Frye’s earworm noodling, this mid-album track and its cleverly named follow-up, The Good, The Brad, And The Ugly, serve as two of the centerpieces of the record.
Next up is Crossing The Malpais (a barren volcanic field in western New Mexico), where the guitar conveys what that landscape might actually sound like. Drone Of The Spotted Towhee follows as a vast, effects-heavy affair that also sounds exactly like its title, especially with the ever-so-faint sound of birds in the distance.
Hitting the home stretch, Temazcal – named after an indigenous sweat lodge – brings it all together. Distorted, Western psych guitar strumming coupled with birds and nature sounds creates a hopeful, new-day-dawning vibe. On On Stone Hut (likely referencing the infamous ‘rock house’ in the Sandia Mountain foothills), Frye’s captivating harmonica makes another appearance that spans just over a minute.
This leads into the penultimate and cumbersomely titled Upon The Bones Cholla Cactus Sat Vultures, a desert drone epic for the ages before we close with Gila, undoubtedly about the Gila National Forest. Alongside the instrumentation and effects, more sounds of the outdoors – including running water – wrap things up nicely as the album fades into silence.
Reverberations From The American Southwest’s press material mentions this record being a love letter to New Mexico. As someone born and raised here and spent the bulk of my life in the state, I can say unequivocally that Brad Frye has succeeded in doing just that. This album deftly captures the sound, energy, vastness, and uniqueness of my home state.
While I only met him in person a handful of times, I found him to be kind and gracious. He obviously takes what he does very seriously, making the most of his time here through both his music and his label. This strange place on ancient land clearly made a significant impact on him, and the album displays that notion empathetically. We will miss his restless creativity here in New Mexico and look forward to his future musical endeavors. Recommended.
Label: Desert Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Martin Williams
