Half Shadow - Fruit (Antiquated Future) [Freak Folk]

I first stumbled across Jesse Carsten, aka Half Shadow four years back, describing his At Home With My Candles release thus:

Unsurprisingly most lockdown LPs focused on mental states which makes Half Shadow's wide eyed analysis of his abode, its reassuring monotony & existential anchoring, & as a catalyst for freak folk fantasies & psychedelic poetry, even more refreshing. You'll never look at your wardrobe, yoga mat & pot plants the same way again.

It also appears I was somewhat late to the party; I've just learned that he's been composing, playing and producing freak folk rooted, oddball pop rock flirting socio-geographic tales of the Pacific Northwest and musings on less corporeal plains from his Portland home for the last thirteen years, and I for one am glad he's still at it and keeping it weird. If only our world leaders had acid-folk side projects, the world would be a better place.

For his forthcoming release he's teamed up with Portland's Antiquated Future Records - a fine purveyor of independent cultural oddities, who you might remember for putting out the excellent Dao Strom release in September last year? I can't help thinking they're a good match, there's a four track 7" record coming out on March 6th, and I'm happy to report the first single is great.

Starting off innocently enough with some straight ahead acoustic guitar picking, "Fruit" takes all of a few seconds before the freak folk flag is raised with some woozy reversed effects, closely followed by some percussion which sounds like some sort of moving train's rattling than any discernible instrument being struck, the perfect undertow for Carsten's Americana style reminiscing about a winter of mental discontent and spring's mental fog clearing; the guitar torn between lucidity and lysergic anguish, but ultimately the warm rays making it through the mist, and lighting the way to what promises to be a typically curious EP.

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Playlist Companion

Find Half Shadow in the Slow Psyche Playlist.