download: WARCHALKING-STRATUM

“Stratum” is a pan-dimensional experience rather than a simple adventure for your ears.  Despite its roots being in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, it is much less a product of modern America, and much more a reaction to it. As its title suggests, here is a collection of songs that are positively subterranean by nature – the sound of the American underground and with a little bit of luck, quite possibly a sound of the future too. The far-reaching scope of each track is mirrored enigmatically in the heady depths of the album – there are serious layers everywhere you look. Here is home-recorded multi-multi-tracked music, vocal tracks and harmonies overlapping guitar parts overlapping more guitar parts. Stripped down hasn’t sounded so sonic since Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. But make no mistake, this is a long way away from the hippy naivety of the 1960s – Warchalking’s second record mixes the colours up beneath the earth and when it rips up like oil from your speakers the picture it paints is as dark and poetic as it is bright and melodic. This is a complex record.

Tracklisting:

1 I Know Your Name

2 The Warning

3 Steady The Hand

4 So Much

5 Can’t Wait Til Tokyo

6 Big Dumb American

7 Song Of Place

8 Pray We Get There Soon

9 First Responder

10 As We End