Dylan Shearer – Planted/Plans LP (Yik Yak)
Dylan Shearer simply lacks the goods needed to properly navigate the freak-folk ruins. That sub-genre, like all now-forgotten, phased-out, or bulldozed-over developments in underground pop culture, was born of dominating chapters that can themselves be traced back to one governing genre of the past twenty years: indie rock. You can pile on as many forgotten Xian obscurities and 70’s “outsiders” as you like, but the engine is indie rock, and as with, say, post-rock, the strong weather the trend period that devours the weak. That’s why we still have a band like Mogwai, and within freak-folk or weird & bearded America or whatever you want to call it, Devendra is going to continue to do what he does, and he might even spit out a great album or two before old age. Planted/Plans is like a freak-folk karaoke machine, a seemingly perfect mixture of Espers, Feathers, Devendra, J. Newsom, and extra-orbital untouchables like Ghost, but excepting the last example, people seem to forget how grossly mediocre the movement was in the first place, and records like this happen. 100 copies. (http://www.yikyak.net)
(Andrew Earles)
