Canadensis: Ancestors
Anima Recordings

A mere fifty cassette copies of Ancestors have been prepared, which seems a woefully small number for a recording so deserving of wider distribution; fortunately, a download of the release is available for anyone deprived of the physical version. Ancestors is actually the second album from Canadensis duo Tom Asselin (Dragon Turtle) and David Fylstra (Folian, Ramprasad), whose guitar-based instrumentals reverberate with the massive force of a nuclear power generator.

The skysurfers came together four years ago, not somewhere in Canada as the name suggests but in northeast Pennsylvania and have been stoking fire from Portland and Eugene, Oregon for the past few years. The two supplement their creations with field recordings, but for the most part Ancestors' focus is on guitars and presumably ones laden with effects. The release is effectively structured, with five shorter pieces backed by a side-long, twenty-six-minute epic; even better, all six are subtly different, making for a well-rounded portrait.

The lethal weaponry's hauled out early in “Somewhere in Time,” seven smoldering minutes of monumental grandiosity. In the opening section, immense sheets of muffled textures roll across the skies, threatening to consume everything in their path, until the intensity subsides and the material dials down to the level of a peaceful murmur. The group's ambient side rises to the fore for the equally panoramic “Sand Spring” and “Fields of Air,” the latter the rare instance where the natural sonorities of the guitar are featured on a recording that largely sees the instrument's textural dimension emphasized. Ancestors isn't without its gentler moments, as shown by the sweetly melodic “Precession,” another instance where untreated picking is clearly part of the mix.

With twenty-six minutes at its disposal, the B-side's “Pine Island Bay” can afford to unfold at a slow and measured pace. Starting out in quasi-industrial mode, the material briefly assumes a pastoral character before molten stabs pierce the quietude. With support on this track from bass playing, guitar sounds rise thereafter from the barren lands like some elemental force, the group coaxing from its gear a series of raw, shredded wails that suggest ancient life forms coming into being eons ago.

August 2018