a video premiere
Abronia
“Gemini”
Cardinal Fuzz, Feeding Tube Records
by Rose Petralia
Keelin Mayer has one of those voices that could get you $100,000 on the ’70s version of Name That Tune. Pure and resonant and unforgettable, on new single “Gemini,” Mayer’s vocals are paralleled by calm, clear flute flutter, enveloped in tribal drum and ethereal string. Gorgeous all together, the song is a dank march through a tenuous existence we’re not sure we like very much.
“I was originally inspired by the would-be dictator’s astrological sign, and the way he’s destroying the country,” says Mayer. “I was also thinking about the duality that the astrological sign Gemini represents and the ecological collapse we are currently witnessing. Towards the conclusion of the track we emerge from despair and band together to look for a way out.”
In the video directed by Chris Headland, we pan through a bleeding red world, where grass and trees and mountainsides appear not placid, but in danger of falling apart, as vulnerable as the lone startled deer soon obscured by the concrete haze of humans’ selfish excess. It’s a cycle, you know, or at least part of one, the way Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi (1982) is. The comparison is easy to grasp: “Gemini” is another gorgeous soundtrack to another corruption in progress, as vivid as any Phillip Glass composition.
Abronia, that is, Keelin Mayer (Vocals, Tenor Saxophone, Flute), Rick Pedrosa (Pedal Steel, Percussion), Robert Grubaugh (Big Drum, Percussion, Melodica), Danny Metcalfe (Bass), James Shaver (Guitar), and Eric Crespo (Guitar, Backing Vocals), have been playing their unique meld of psychedelic desert noir+ for ten years with various bandmates. Catch them at a Shapes Unravel celebration show in late February.
Feb 26: Portland, OR, Mississippi Studios w/ Jackie-O Motherfucker
Feb 27: Seattle, WA, Add-a-Ball w/ Jackie-O Motherfucker, Von Wildenhaus
Feb 28: Bellingham, WA, Make.Shift Art Space w/ Jackie-O Motherfucker, The Sheen
“Gemini” is streaming everywhere now. Stream the whole Shapes Unravel album on February 20. ◼
