Birch Book

Psychedelic Folk Pilgrim Jon Michael B'eirth (In Gowan Ring, Mary Throwing Stones, Psickadilik Psyrkuz) re-collects a dozen years against the grain, hinging on the fringes of darkness and day, hand-bound in the Outsider's dreamscape of Birch Book. B'eirth spent the mid 90's recording for the dark-starred World Serpent imprint (along with Coil, Current 93, Antony and the Johnsons, etc.) with the soporific and supernatural In Gowan Ring. Autoscopic affects and transfluent identity loss have been reported from In Gowan Ring induced swoons produced without the use of chemicals. Birch Book marks an evolution in sound away from the overtly psychedelic towards a simpler, highly effective, direct song based approach, reflecting the distillations of a perennial rambler, reckoning a road less traveled.

On this album we hear a more personal sound, approaching Leonard Cohen in it's abstracted travelogues on songs like "Train To Rome" and in the stark directness of the songs. The searching, probing melody of "Leaf Patches on Sidewalks" is an unresolved circular figure, drawing out the seeming unclosed memories being explored. This feeling of searching carries on into the Donovan styled "Sleepless Search" with the ominous low tones of the piano and ends with "Windows" which moves us back to a traditional folk sound with lute, layers of acoustic guitar, cello and a melody that sounds hundreds of years old. This manages to bring together the exploration of the earlier work of In Gowan Ring in a more minimalistic way that points to the future for the artist.