Cassette Review: Wilmoth Axel "Resonation" (Personal Archives)

$5 //
Edition of 50 //
https://personalarchives.bandcamp.com/album/resonation //

My third time around listening to Wilmoth Axel, "Resonation" being the newest cassette.   While it begins with quieter, singular guitar notes it eventually kicks into some psychedelic rock.   It actually becomes psychedelic and chill at the same time which caused me to form the new genre name "psychill" which will probably not catch on, but yes, there are elements of Pink Floyd at the start here.

As the songs move along there are pieces which remind me of The Doors and even later on during the cassette they bring out those organ keys which make me even further about that idea.  But I would say that there are two distinct influences on this cassette I can hear coming out, both of them as powerful as each other and, well, if you think about the two of them as ever have doing a collaboration it might make your head explode.

On one hand, the fuzzy guitars make me think of Neil Young.  Maybe not the slower, folk-cowboy songs you think of Neil Young as having as "hits" but the gritty, plugged in and pissed off version of Neil Young.   The one which inspired Pearl Jam and, well, countless others.    That's the Neil Young I love.   And yet, as Side B opens up questioning "Where is this ship going?" I can't help but think of David Bowie.   Could you imagine- a musical project fueled by David Bowie and Neil Young?  If such a thing exists and I'm just too blind to see it right now due to lack of sleep please let me know.

"One Of These Days" is a nice jam, there's an instrumental number and then at the end of "The Last Day of Now" and the end of the cassette as a whole the line that leaves us hanging is "This is goodbye...", though I hope it is not and we hear more music from Wilmoth Axel in the future.   Lyrics like "It's the only way to clear my head" make me feel like Wilmoth Axel feels the same way about music that I do.  I hear the title of the track "I Meet Resistance" as "I need resistance", which I don't know why someone would need resistance but the idea that you can mishear lyrics and have thoughts about what they would mean is pretty amazing.

"We won't take what you give" has definite Neil Young vibes all over it and my favorite line of this entire cassette is perhaps "Calm the fuck down / take a deep breath".   You know how there are special terms for things in music, like an album can be self-titled but if your album is called "Album" and you have a song called "Album" then that song is the titular track (or title track).  But is there a name for when your title of the album appears in a song that isn't the title track?  There should be.   There should also be a name for when the title of a song is the opening lines to it.   I've heard this a few times lately and it happens on my favorite song on "Resonation" called "You Don't Have To Be Right All the Goddamned Time".   If such things don't exist though perhaps Wilmoth Axel can once again pave the way for us all.