Prequel

Album review

Infinite River is the union of three Detroit-area music veterans along with a guest percussionist: guitarists Gretchen Gonzales (Slumber Party, Terror at the Opera, Universal Indians) and Joey Mazzola (Detroit Cobras, Sponge), His Name Is Alive's Warren Defever playing harmonium and tanpura, and drummer Steve Nistor (who has contributed to albums by Sparks, Daniel Lanois, Gnarls Barkley, and countless others). All four musicians have also backed up folk troubadour Ethan Daniel Davidson as Seedsmen to the World, releasing a self-titled 2022 LP containing cosmic Americana takes on songs by Bob Dylan and Creedence Clearwater Revival. The Infinite River project formed during the initial COVID-19 lockdown, when the core trio began recording instrumental jams at a home studio in Birmingham, Michigan; Nistor added percussive heartbeats later, from his remote location in the Upper Peninsula. The result is an album of free-flowing, earthy yet galactic instrumentals recalling the best of Michigan's storied space rock legacy, but with a more meditative, raga-like serenity. The nearly 12-minute opening track is a soothing flow of gentle guitar melodies swept along by a gauzy harmonium drone, while swelling cymbals and patient kick drums provide a loose rhythmic framework. Track three incorporates gliding, shoegaze-like guitar, offsetting the loud, searing tone with friendlier, more forgiving chords. Defever switches to tanpura for much of the second side of the record, giving the music a more mystical feel. The album's fourth song seems to feature crying pedal steel guitar tones, while the fifth goes in a more playful, vaguely exotica-like direction. The final piece flips from reversed guitars to a comforting form of floating space blues. The album's title promises more to come, but right from the start, Infinite River produce a gorgeous convergence of sounds on their initial effort.

© Paul Simpson /TiVo