There’s something reassuring about the music of sound artist boycalledcrow regularly sneaking through all the noise and getting some attention. It restores faith that singular, outsider work will always find its way to listeners who want something less defined, tinged with eccentricity and creative determination. It also suggests the lineage which extends from Syd Barrett through Ivor Cutler and Robert Wyatt onto Broadcast and Pye Audio Corner right up to Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan, Cosmo Sheldrake and Sam Lee, still has a healthy pulse.
Former folk singer Carl M Knott, now boycalledcrow has been exploring these pastures for a while now, since 2019’s ‘Emerald’, a warm work of new age, Tangerine Dreaming. With a steady ripple of releases on niche channels such as Subexotic and Waxing Crescent he’s been slipping between the ambient and folktronica zones but following his own mind map . Imagine BBC Radiophonic workshop in conversation with Davy Graham or Philip Jeck making plans with John Renborn and you might be edging close to where this music is coming from. Whether you’re curious or previously convinced, the arrival of new boycalledcrow stuff, in the shape of the ‘eyetrees’ album should be beyond tempting.
Released through the ever-diligent Hive Mind Records, ‘eyetrees’ sees boycalledcrow building on the electro- acoustic experimentation he’s been filtering into his tunes since 2020’s ‘Mystic Scally’. Like his last albums ‘Nightmare Folk Art’ and ‘Kullu’ his lucid and lovely acoustic guitar playing continues to thrive here, a key component in the intricate threading of melody, electronics and field recordings. The opener worlds chimes to looped zinging plucks and patterns from his fingertips, conjuring an earthy Michael Chapman funkiness as it chugs along to a locomotive hiss. sweet dunes carries on the fretboard fantasia, settling to a calm swaying chord descent as the rustle and rumble of found sounds adds more gritty detailing. These tunes seem to set the album’s tone, joyous, out in the open air, carefree but also tinged with memories, a soundtrack to a rediscovered film reel.
In talking about ‘eyetrees’ Knott has revealed its closeness to his day to day. It’s biographical, inspired by family times spent in the woods playing with his children, where one special “eye tree” watches over like a guardian. However, for boycalledcrow the album also quivers with unease as such unspoiled moments are also a reminder “that anything can happen and that life is delicate and can be taken away in a flash”.
So clearly ‘eyetrees’ vibrates with a particular personal resonance which goes on to gently tug at your emotions. Take the hymnal swirl of kids where the distant zithering of chord reverberations sigh in slow motion or the cavernous drone of heavy heart, where the pulsing dulcimer tick revives strongly despite the swelling storm sounds threatening to engulf it. There’s something small but hopeful at the nub of these tunes which is echoed again in the innocent ‘toy’ guitar tone of the shimmering noah.
As hinted at in Knott’s description of the music on ‘eyetrees’, the tentative and tense are finely balanced with the moments of easy-going tranquility as on the vibrant honeybee. Here the flighty guitars chip out a zippy rhythm then recede, giving way to an urgent snare tap and more strummed James Blackshaw-esque layers. The song also shows boycalledcrow’s inventive approach to dynamics, fading the mix midway to near silence then gradually coaxing the tune’s return. It’s a deceptively effective element of Knott’s sonic craft, quirky, slightly off- kilter, a kind of reminder of how unpredictability brings a drama of its own to music.
Not that ‘eyetrees’ is an album that aims for any overblown gesturing. These are diaphanous, understated pieces which need neither extreme contrasts or extended, pseudo-hypnotic length to have an impact. boycalledcrow packs out this fine album with exquisite pieces of hauntological pop. Take the uplifting skip of my friend janu, all pulsing reverb loops and lo-fi beats with those cheeky glitches and cartoon vocal scrambles, or the twinkling music box thrill of autumn love, its wood chocks and jangling riffs twitching with the inventiveness of early Tunng. Then there’s the wonderful excursion to westbury, a tune with a songsmith’s touch, where the bluesy riffs underpin some impressionistic sound sculpting that flows ingeniously between rhythmic crunches and intricate atmospherics.
Passages such as these and the closing meticulous glitch collage of cutie pie loves churp underlines that ‘eyetrees’ not only glows with pastoral calm but also thrives on forward thinking. boycalledcrow’s music may be restrained and ‘soft’ but it’s not passively contented. His sound-world is always subtly refining and refreshing itself although crucially at its own careful pace … and that is its enduring strength.
Get your copy of ‘eyetrees‘ by boycalledcrow from your local record store or direct from Hive Mind Records: HERE
