In the store | TRANCE FARMERS – DIXIE CRYSTALS
Leaving Records presents the debut album of Trance Farmers, Dixie Crystals. This is a guitar-slathered, twang-soaked sashay through the unique musical mind of time-traveling bluesman Dayve Samek with a collection of tunes steeped in magical and murky Los Angeles.
Recorded over several years and across the city, the album draws from Samek's experiences on the shores of Venice Beach to the majestic foothills of Altadena. An omnipresent pollutant haze hangs over the whole affair, choking twinkling tones like so much carbon monoxide.
Songs range from tenderly warped ballads of friendship and love to inhalant-fueled rockabilly joyrides. Over the course of ten tracks, a drifting young hayseed finds himself temporarily settled in a sprawling but claustrophobic megalopolis, which feels more like a decrepit roadside attraction on the information superhighway. Sweaty, garage-born ballads brush shoulders with drifter anthems and gasoline drenched doo wop. Next – moonshine.
Before the album's release, Samek will have already sauntered on down the road, leaving the west coast a distant, smudged memory– a faded photograph worn with joy and laughter and sadness. 'Dixie Crystals' can then be considered a memento, its gleaming selections fragments of getting lost and growing up and finally hitting the road. Last we heard, Samek was spotted somewhere down in the swamps of Louisiana running his vital cassette label, Glue Moon Records. Who knows what lies ahead? Ride on, Greasy Rider.
A prelude to this release, Dixie Caps, was released earlier this year on cassette.
