August Born

Those of you keeping up with the indie free-folk movement know August Born is a highly anticipated summer blockbuster. It's the product of a kinda collaboration between two heavyweights of said movement: NorCal wanderer Ben Chasney (aka Six Organs of Admittance) and Japanese avant-blues musician Hiroyuki Usui (aka L, who created the mid-'90s cult classic Holy Letters). I employed the word "kinda" because Chasney and Hiro didn't physically jam together. The duo instead constructed this record by sending recorded tracks back and forth across the Pacific. The process is immediately detectable because none of these 10 bluesy meditations feels like a genuine fusion (and transcendence) of Chasney's and Hiro's respective musical egos. In other words, the seams are all too apparent. Some tracks are wholly Eastern, Chasney accompanying Hiro with guitar, percussion, and/or voice, while other tracks sound like delicate indie-folk, Six Organs-style, airbrushed with a few Eastern flourishes. Is it a case of oil 'n' water? I'm inclined to believe so, especially after hearing the tune "More Dead Bird Blues," wherein Chasney's usually feather-light voice painfully (and repeatedly) falls flat when attempting to shadow that of Hiro, which is weaving this sonorous, straight-from-the-temple prayer. In all honesty, this music feels rather fractured and uneventful, when it should be feeling totally profound.