Wooden Wand – Blood Oaths of the New Blues (2013)

Wooden Wand isn't even that familiar artist to me. Basically, it is a pseudonym of James Jackson Toth, who has also performed under the stage name WAND. I remember hearing his music the first time on a Spotify folk playlist. I liked the music enough that I remembered the name and when I was browsing the sale vinyl records at Flash Back in Islington here in London, I decided to buy this album with £5. I haven't really listened to this album as much as I probably should've, but I blame the fact that my record player in London isn't that good and I didn't get the mp3 download with the album. This isn't the only reason though. Even if I like the calm folk stylings with some country influences, I'm having difficult time actually remembering any songs from this album. The songs are a bit too generic to leave a mark.



Wooden Wand's music is sometimes described as New Weird America, a musical style that draws influences from Americana folk music, but also from psychedelic rock and folk groups of the 60's and 70's. The other artists in this genre include the likes of Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart. In the light of this, it is no wonder that Wooden Wand hasn't made as large an impact on me as the other two, whose music is by far more original. I also see, maybe a bit surprising, connections to early 90's shoegaze bands, such as Mazzy Star. There are similar hypnotic and calm tones in the music, even if it is more acoustic.

Wooden Wand really isn't trying to be very commercial. The album starts with almost 12 minutes long song No Bed for Beatle Wand / Days This Long. The beginning of this song is quite typical lo-fi Americana folk, but the later half has some serious psychedelic influences. The sound is very minimalist and it's good music to listen to while resting on the sofa with eyes closed. Outsider Blues reminds me especially of Mazzy Star's quiet and calm musical style. Dome Community People (Are Good People) raises the volume a bit with even some overdriven guitars. Nevertheless, the song has a shamanistic style that keeps the tempo very calm. Dungeon of Irons slows things down even further, but there are interesting echoey organ and guitar sounds. Supermoon (The Sounding Line) has a bit more country-style sounds and I could even see a ballad like this appearing on a Wilco album. Southern Colorado Song relies on echoey and fuzzy guitars, while still maintaining a calm folk mood. The ending song No Debts is the most typical indie folk song with just an acoustic guitar and vocals.

I haven't seen any Wooden Wand music videos before, but now I looked on Youtube and found a video for Supermoon. The video fits in well with Wooden Wand's minimalist sound and quiet hypnotic feeling. The video consists mainly of passing trees on a dark highway. We also see a face and some flowers. In the end, we get some footage of tarmac and it looks like the face we saw had been in a car accident and died.

This isn't the most exciting album I own and I don't really listen to it that much, but it is a good album to relax to. I like the sounds on the album, but the songs could be a bit more eventful to keep my interest up for a bit longer.

Listen to the album on Spotify.