Date Palms - The Dusted Sessions Album Review, Thrill Jockey

Date Palms
The Dusted Sessions
Thrill Jockey Records

On The Dusted Sessions, Date Palms trace a fertile crescent from Nile Delta to Mojave Desert; soaring you though the stratosphere, then plummeting for a McCarthy slow crawl through the dust.

Thrill Jockey have been killing it lately with their evocations of ’70s kosmic soul jazz. Date Palms, however, have not created a love song to a record collection; rather, they employ the traditional associations of eclectic visionary instruments to take you on a journey through interesting interior landscapes.

On The Dusted Sessions, Fender Rhodes, amplified violin, tanpura, twang guitar (as well as pedal steel), and radiophonic oscillators combine to create a Southwestern dream quest that sounds like Neil Young’s Dead Man soundtrack stacked on top of Kyuss and early Velvet Underground bootlegs. But where all those records had the tube and grit of analog recording, The Dusted Sessions has a peculiar weightless quality to it, along with some real hefty bassweight, that marks this as distinctly modern. Something new, and interesting.

Gregg Kowalsky and Marielle Jakobsons (this time joined by Ben Bracken, Michael Elrod, and Noah Philips), are picking through the remnants of history, panning through it like gold miners, and removing the chaff of wankery. In short, with The Dusted Sessions, they have created a new classic Meditating On Heat Shimmers While Cruising Death Valley cosmic Americana record. It’s like Gram Parsons riding off in a saucer, while New Riders Of The Purple Sage play at the lonesome saloon down the way. Or The Mahavishnu Orchestra, sitting in at The Desert Sessions.

With summer upon us, we all need a few new driving records in our collections, and this is one of them. It’s a blast of hot, dry air; a transubstantiation of cracked Earth, for all your vision quest needs.