Droneroom: Barstow Deluxe

It’s crucial to experience music in different environments; particular an artist whom you’ve spent a lot of time with, and droneroom possibly heads that particular list.

The project of Tacoma, Washington-based Blake Conley sees the cowboy of drone carving out soundscapes that lend themselves to free movement. Long walks and aimless wanderings – the sort of mundane adventures that bring tranquility and fresh perspective. To me, that’s what the droneroom experience is all about that. Cosmic sketches designed to take the mind to far out places, including ones you’ve never been to before. For any artform, this the desired endpoint.

Those familiar with these climes will be well-versed with the Blake Conley story, and following his swathe of new releases last year, he returns in 2024 with the first bullet from the gun, Barstow Deluxe. While several passages have featured as exclusive tracks on various Bandcamp Fridays, with the inclusion of two new compositions, Barstow Deluxe presents as a newly formed beast.

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Barstow Deluxe fleetingly offers the best bits of the droneroom canon. There are the sinister sketches that made 2023’s Rusted Lung one of the albums of the year; the trappings of the warped alt-country fever dream of The Best of My Love and the slow burning majesty of Life Ain’t Worth the Drown (both also landed last year), not to mention Conley’s acclaimed Whatever Truthful Understanding (2022).

Conley opens the gates with State of the Cusp (For Jonathan Reeve) – a metallic twang with a repetitious riff bursting with a melody that is the track’s bedrock. It’s Conley at his most emotive and evocative, which sets up the rest of the album.

The guitarist always offers humour via song titles and The Vampire Corsa sees Conley nodding in the direction of his long-time collaborator and kindred spirit, Nonconnah’s Zachary Corsa. Like And All Ships at Sea, both tracks are littered with wonky sonics, field recordings and voiceovers that possess an eerie aura that whirrs and oscillates between orbits.

Although the Heat Had Not Yet Broken is equally unsettling. A canvassing nightscape with droning undercurrents that would flush out the most sinister protagonist from your nightmares. The anxiety within these passages portrays a dynamic rawness equal to the later works of Daniel Bachman.

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Meanwhile, A Trick of Limmerence (for Cory Fusting), sees Conley paying tribute to the label-founder for which this record is released. He also walks through new sound portals. Think Fennesz on shrooms, and with the staple dust storm of drone, it instils a new wave of psychedelic horror. And those ominous atmospheres continue on All the Lampposts are Crucifixes – a crack and rumble of post-apocalyptic dread.

On My Own Private Lamoreaux, again, Conley gives another nod, this time to the Somewhere Cold Records-founder and his disciple Jason Lamoreaux, where we are met with a menacing desertscape, dripping with scorn and menace. Elemental country drone with a backdrop of hazy oranges and reds dominating the canvass.

Barstow Deluxe varies in pace and intensity. Improvisations that feel (albeit very loosely) inspired by Ragged-Glory-era Neil Young. With varying tones and twangs enveloped in sinister atmospheres, Conley keeps us trapped in his vortex. Sound worlds are things often spoken of throughout these pages, but droneroom is all about exploring the vortex. That itself may be considered a sound world, however with the kind of sonic range that is fundamentally about movement, on Barstow Deluxe, it’s not outlandish to suggest that Conley has demonstrated this better than he ever has before.

Barstow Deluxe is out tomorrow via Doodle Hound. Purchase from Bandcamp.