“In a word: serene.”
06/26/2018 Prana Crafter / Psych Insight Music / review
One of the more well-known sayings of the Buddha is that you can never enter the same stream twice. Another is that you can build a raft to traverse a stretch of water, but if you then keep it with you it will only be a burden when on dry land. Whether or not the title of this album was intended to bring these ideas to mind I have no idea but they are certainly appropriate. Like Elkhorn, Prana Crafter (the solo project of Washington State’s William Sol) is an act that I have very much enjoyed in the past. And also like Elkhorn it’s music that is produced spontaneously, Sol saying that he does not some much make music as channel it. In which case this channel is certainly a one-shot stream crossing which has been beautifully captured here in a series of songs that brings to mind some of the great psych/ folk music of yore.
Like the two albums above this is music that communes with nature is a very deep way to give the listener a sense of peace, but also a sense of challenge. This is music that really bites into the soul, opening up fissures in our psyche through which we can reflect and learn more about ourselves and our relationship to the world around us. Not the latest advertising slogan, but the earth beneath us, the air we breathe and the sky above. In listening to this we enter the stream, become the stream and leave with a new sense of purpose and understanding. In a word: serene.