Spires That In the Sunset Rise - Ancient Patience Wills It Again Part II (Vinyl LP)

But I never heard Part 1 gawdammit!  Seriously, there's some very powerful and rather eerie stuff going on here throughout this second leg from our cult Illinois Fem-psych-folk collective. APWIA2 is actually their sixth long player and I am feeling quite humbled this evening to be allowed to grapple and tumble with an album that reeks so pungently of such alluringly magickal, dark folk classicism.

An austere sustained drone hovers above a gothic ballad, a song of grave proportions in which desolate cello, sombre hushed voice and trails of feedback, ranging from the thunderous to squealing, vie for supremacy. A foreboding opener indeed. Next is a tune named 'Smoke', a heady pagan folk meditation that features some lush peaceful trippy harmonium. I saw Sylvester Anfang open their set at TUSK the other weekend accompanied by a rustic Indian variation on this beautiful reedy sounding organ and I was in seventh heaven. They're the loveliest guys in the world Sylvester Anfang by the way!

'Ancient Drains' is just demented, or becomes so gradually. I feel like I'm in some crazed witchy free-folk ceremony. Great creepy tune that I maybe shouldn't talk too much about in lest I be hexed. 'Winter Song' on the other hand is more come-hither and sensually embracing, mainly due to the honeyed far-away gaze of the twin vocals. I love the sawing floor-staring spike fiddle coursing through the various strains of sweet banjo and other multitudinous string plucking. This song is an absolute gem, so much so I am DJing with it tonight.

'Ours is Not The Only Society' starts with a cool grainy cut and paste collage of old radio dialogue  loops before descending into a forest drone folk spook-a-thon that is just as impressive as Natural Snow Buildings at their very wildest. The strings are Godspeed beautiful, all in all a supernaturally enticing instrumental masterpiece that bombards you with some well-placed guitar fuzz malevolence as it reaches its crescendo. The finale 'Revella' is a spectral ethereal folk ballad, as unnerving and supernaturally beautiful as much of the rest of this amazing record.