Dedicated to early
Arthur Lee bandmate and
Kenneth Anger collaborator (and, more notoriously, still-imprisoned Manson Family member)
Bobby Beausoleil,
Wooden Wand's entry for Three Lobed Recordings' Modern Containment series is a strong, sprightly effort of six tunes, generally focusing more on formal song and lyric structure than his more exploratory efforts. Backed by the two-person Omen Bones Band of
Keith Wood and
Satya Sai, adding some bass and more guitar,
Wand's way around acoustic folk/blues is appropriately rough-edged but never overly murky. He's not out to capture field recordings all over again, rather to convey a slightly distanced atmosphere, where the acoustic guitars sound sharp and spindly and his singing a playful, attractive twang. Other songs have a fuller, dreamier sound: "Black Hanna" quietly suggests vast, mysterious landscapes, thanks to the mix of buried electric guitar murmurs in a very
Flying Saucer Attack vein, while "Ancestral Mem'ry 4" trips out into full instrumental space-out territory for the only time on the disc. His way around words is also in overdrive, with some killer lines throughout. Consider this couplet from the opening "Wand Arise": "They'll tell a lie on credit when the truth costs just a dime." Touching on everything from tales of drug-running, guillotine-polishing criminals ("Son of Wand (Hard Luck Prince)") to cryptic revolutionaries who never quite succeeded ("War Star Days"), the latter, perhaps, the strongest connection to the person who the disc is dedicated to, and a fitting conclusion to the release as a whole.