Woods: Perennial (color) LP

“Woods are in bloom again, inviting you to disappear into a new spectrum of colors and sounds and dreams on Perennial. “Formed in Brooklyn in 2004, Woods have matured into a true independent institution, above and below the root, reliably emerging every few years with new music that grows towards the latest sky. Operating the Woodsist label since 2006 and curating the beloved homespun Woodsist Festival for the musical universe they’ve built, Perennial is the sound of a band on the edge of their 20th anniversary and still finding bold new ways to sound like (and challenge) themselves. “Perennial grew from a bed of guitar / keyboard / drum loops by Woods head-in-chief Jeremy Earl, a form of winter night meditation that evolved into an unexplored mode of collaborative songwriting. With Earl’s starting points, he and bandmates Jarvis Taveniere and John Andrews convened, first at Earl’s house in New York, then at Panoramic House studio in Stinson Beach, California, site of sessions for 2020’s Strange To Explain. With a view of the sparkling Pacific and tape rolling, they began to build, jamming over the loops, switching instruments, and developing a few dozen building blocks. “The album’s resulting eleven songs, four of them instrumental, are in the classic Woods mode—shimmering, familiar, fractionally unsettling—but with the half-invisible infinity boxes of Earl’s loops burbling beneath each like a mysterious underground source. From source to seed to bloom, each loop unfolds into something unpredictable, from the jeweled pop of the aching ‘Little Black Flowers’ to the ecstatic starlit freak-beat of ‘Another Side.’ They are blossomings both far-out and comforting, like the Mellotronic cloud-hopping of ‘Between the Past,’ or sometimes just plain comforting, like the widescreen snowglobe fantasia of the instrumental ‘White Winter Melody,’ touched by Connor Gallaher’s pedal steel.” —Jesse Jarnow