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Joseph Allred – Old Time Fantasias (2025)
Review:
It’s not often an album title perfectly sums up the kind of music contained within, but Old Time Fantasias comes close. Joseph Allred’s 23rd solo album (roughly) is a finely-balanced combination of dreamlike freeform experimentalism and folksy fingerpicked twang, the kind of thing the Massachusetts resident has perfected over their long career. But take a closer listen and you might come to the conclusion that this album is something of an outlier in Allred’s catalogue. For one thing, Old Time Fantasias is not really a solo album: early in the recording process, Allred enlisted the help of pianist Hans Chew, and before long, the project had burgeoned into what Allred calls ‘probably the most involved and densely orchestrated album I’ve made to date,’ featuring banjo, strings, pump organ and trombones. Unlike many of Allred’s recent albums, including 2023’s New Jerusalem, Old Time Fantasias is entirely instrumental. Allred has concentrated on creating a mood that is poised between nostalgia and psychedelic abandon, where the musical tropes of the past melt into timeless passages with a loose, improvisatory feel. Opener The Groundhog is jaunty and easygoing, and Chew’s piano makes you feel like you’re in a sawdust-strewn honky-tonk, albeit one in Appalachia rather than the South. In the final minute, Mikey Allred’s trombone adds yet another dimension, and suddenly, the piece seems to have one foot in New Orleans. Allred is adept at traversing the physical and the psychic terrain of American music with ease, and Cub Creek Blues Part II situates us in the heart of the American landscape. Field recordings of running water give way to rickety percussion and a primitive guitar that treads softly but confidently, picking up pace here and slowing down there. There is a strong visual element to Allred’s music, and the earthy twang of Rope Swing on the River Styx is particularly filmic, sounding like it could come from something directed by Jim Jarmusch or one of Wim Wenders’ American films or even Pat Garrett-era Dylan. Tracks in the Snow is more delicate, at least to begin with: an impressionistic piece of American primitive guitar playing that moves into harsher territory as it progresses. The lengthy centrepiece Ditch Lily Suite takes in everything from psychedelic country to neo-classical flourishes and chamber pop, with a bit of bluesy boogie in between. The biggest departure here is Moon Dance, which owes as much to the first wave of British dream pop as it does to Americana. The drums, presumably played by Allred, sound as if they could have been programmed by Robin Guthrie, and the guitar swoons woozily over the top. Closer Daji adds violin and bowed bass to the mix, along with Chew’s piano and Allred’s laid-back but adroit guitar work and some dramatic splashes of percussion. There is a propulsive, undeniable feel to it that might have its roots in rock music (Allred has been in stoner-rock bands, and many of their songs bear the structural hallmarks of post-rock), but most of all, this, like the rest of the album, is music of a widescreen variety. Instead of playing ‘spot the genre’, the best course of action is simply to let Allred’s visionary music carry you into an ever-changing world of dreamy American pastoralia. — klofmag.com
Track List:
01 - The Groundhog
02 - Cub Creek Blues, Part II
03 - Rope Swing on the River Styx
04 - Tracks in the Snow
05 - Ditch Lily Suite
06 - Moon Dance
07 - Daji
Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk, americana
Origin: Boston, Massachusetts, USA 
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.3.0 (UTC 2013-05-26)
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