skogsgospel.blogspot.com
"Up in Northern California, amongst the giant redwoods of Humboldt County, has emerged a psych- folk classic. Ghosts, This Is Survival is loose and varied, with lots of spacey sounds and vocals, (not unlike Gong), and may very well be the first record I’ve heard featuring both a turntablist and sitar player..."
Terrascope
Terrascope
"It's hard to explain the connection one makes on the road with fellow touring musicians. To hear the evolution of a group of musicians is pretty incredible, especially when they make a piece of art like this.
This is for fans of post-rock, ambient, and many other genres. It's the kind of thing people wish they'd created..."
"An offshoot of the freeform musical collective known as Datura Blues, the Arcata, California-based project Die Geister Beschwören has roots in the folk traditions but clearly enjoys ripping those out of the ground and replanting them at will. Led by multi-instrumentalist Oryan Peterson-Jones, the group (whose name translates to “call up the ghosts”) plays music that, at times, feels held together by rough bits of twine and prayer, and elsewhere feels meticulously constructed with an abundance of horns and strings. It’s anyone’s guess which side of the band we’ll get tonight. Either way, it will be a night of psych bliss..."
Robert Ham, Portland Mercury
This is for fans of post-rock, ambient, and many other genres. It's the kind of thing people wish they'd created..."
Beau Finley
"An offshoot of the freeform musical collective known as Datura Blues, the Arcata, California-based project Die Geister Beschwören has roots in the folk traditions but clearly enjoys ripping those out of the ground and replanting them at will. Led by multi-instrumentalist Oryan Peterson-Jones, the group (whose name translates to “call up the ghosts”) plays music that, at times, feels held together by rough bits of twine and prayer, and elsewhere feels meticulously constructed with an abundance of horns and strings. It’s anyone’s guess which side of the band we’ll get tonight. Either way, it will be a night of psych bliss..."
Robert Ham, Portland Mercury
"Led by Oryan Peterson-Jones, the musical collective known as Die Geister Beschwören (translated as: Call Up the Ghosts) has been exploring facets of world folk music while keeping true to the calling of psychedelia. Recent recordings like Music Feeds Stars and The Great Defenestration are bewitching affairs that fold in elements of droning Indian ragas, thudding gothic pop, and shimmering pop songs that evoke the spirits of Syd Barrett and the Bevis Frond. Tonight's performance is also a chance to say "bon voyage" to Die Geister Beschwören as they embark on a European tour.
Robert Ham, Portland Mercury
"Here come another cassette for your delight, this one mixing Folk with Kraut with lovely results as Die Geister Beschwören blend brass, strings and quite possibly the kitchen sink on Music Feeds Stars one of those albums that makes you feel good to be alive with the flute/guitar sweetness of “Ilya (and Oliver) and “On My Moneth's Mind” its stranger brass led follow up both strongly reminding me of Gorky's with latter sounding like dance music for drunken 1930's ghouls, all woozy trumpets and theremin. Having invited us in with two short tracks the band get serious on the 12 minute “Avenue of the Giants” a magnificent, sprawling epic that has beautiful acoustic guitar, female vocals and a sense of grandeur that is tempered by a languid first half, the piece suddenly bursting into life at the eight minute mark to become the full-on folk-rock freakout you hoped it would, guitar and sax trading licks over the a solid and slightly frantic rhythm before the track fades again into its languid state to undulate beautifully until it dissolves. Like some arcane primitive ritual, “Completed Arch of the Zodiacal Light” manages to incorporate the didgeridoo in a way that doesn't make you think of dreadlocks and dogs on string, whilst “Manimekhala” is a wall of droning noise that slowly morphs into a more ambient piece with field recording and chiming bells before the piece rises again with chanted vocals and an inner tension. To end, “Countershine” is full of light, a sweet blend of guitar, strings and vocals with a spoken word part at the end complete with the sound of birdsong that leads us out perfectly..."
Ptolemaic Terrascope
"A split cassette release of 25 copies on the tiny boutique label, Tandem Tapes out of Jakarta, Indonesia... This cassette arrived in an elaborately designed mailing bag, decorated with collages, featuring Prince on one side and Superman on the other and immediately grabbed my attention. This is the work of Joey Binhammer in Portland, Oregon and Oryan Peterson Jones from up there in Humboldt County, California, amongst the giant redwoods (Oryan is also a collective member of Datura Blues). The record is a split with Helena Espvall, a member of Terrascope favourites Espers, whom Oryan and Joey met at a festival in Denmark. Side one is a lengthy experimental sound collage called The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore featuring massed hushed chorals, bird song, thunder storms, rushing waters, slide guitar, synth’s, banjo and percussion, along with snippets of spooky dialogue and all manner of strange sounds, taking in along the way a bit of African primitive and American blues drone. Helena’s side consists of three tunes “I Andanam” a sparse, sonorous harmonic piece featuring I believe harp, treated cello and synth. “Som Mareld” a short gentle, experimental and languid tone piece, provides some balm for the soul before a blast of heavily amped cello wakes up the senses, with the final track on this cassette “For Leucothea," this one being quite psychedelic and slightly distorted..."
Ptolemaic Terrascope
"Despite their name, Die Geister Beschwören appears to hail from greater Cascadia, from parts of Oregon and Northern California. And despite adopting a spectral name in German, their contribution to Ball of Wax 48 is in Spanish. “Cerro de la Muerte,” translating to “Hill of the Dead,” is a brief, feverish, Lynchian dream of a Mississippi blues song that serves as more interlude than fully-formed song. It’s evocative and atmospheric, like if “Dueling Banjos” from Deliverance was somehow dropped into El Topo..."
Ball of Wax
"This Ball of Wax #48 compilation release party features a rare appearance by the Arcata, California/Portland group Die Geister Beschworen, led by Oryan Peterson-Jones. Local scene vets may remember him from his mid-’00s psych- and post-rock bands Datura Blues and Beast, Please Be Still (they are still active, but now mostly based in Portland). Enough history; let’s discuss DGB’s engrossing music. On their well-stocked Bandcamp, you can find exceptional works like 2015’s Music Feeds Stars, a suite of outward-bound folk-rock that harks back to those early-’00s Weird America (™ The Wire magazine) days. Alternately dense and diaphanous, these songs seed pastoral tropes with strange aural flora and fauna. This year’s “The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore”—on a split release with Espers’ Helena Espvall—is a disorienting studio dream marked by children singing “Happy Birthday” amid a menacing, industrial-folk panorama..."
DAVE SEGAL, The Stranger
"When Oryan Peterson-Jones made contact to point me towards this album, he wrote “recommended if you like Six Organs Of Admittance, Sun City Girls, Ghost, Earth, Dirty Three, etc”. Thus he established a record of sorts, naming an entire clutch of bands of which – believe it or not – I never heard a note. Perhaps this lack of material for comparison is what let me appreciate Drawn To The Investigation Of Shadows more over the course of scattered plays in the last five months or so. In fact, beyond illustrious reputations and stylistic dimensions, this work was evidently designed with finely tuned ears and a definite taste for instrumental abstraction of the purest variety; furthermore, as the thing lasts less than 32 minutes, the risk of weariness is excluded from the beginning. And, did you see how many people helped? In spite of the numerous hands and voices, the music does not reveal itself as untidy or wild: everything appears to be at the right place in the right moment.
So, let the reviewer continue the game initiated by this Portland artist, namely that of finding points of entry in the psychedelic-but-not-too-much universe depicted by the two tracks. Consider that the project’s name translates as “call up the ghosts”, and that peaceful guitars, strings and theremins are prominent in establishing atmospheres between dreamy and bucolic, in any case quite removed from “urban” contaminations. However, keep also in mind that you won’t find the witless trademarks of drugged disorganization: no “warped nightmare” vocals, no low-cost replicas of Pink Floyd’s taped laughs, no amorphous bullshit justified by third-rate “cosmic trips”. The basic substances are predominantly folk-tinged, occasionally (and intelligently) utilizing field recordings and anthemic streams with just the necessary hints to remote latitudes and resonant auras, plus a few unexpected solutions warranting the birth of authentic interest in the listener. If anything, the lone entity to which I managed to relate Peterson-Jones’ vision is my old buddy Mirko Uhlig (currently AWOL) in his Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf embodiment. The genuineness of the intuitions and the credibility of the orchestral vibrancy are indeed pretty similar. In a nutshell, this music is still innocent. Enough for me to sing its praises..."
www.touchingextremes.wordpress.com
"Krautrock collective from Portland, Oregon. Multiple textures of music with widespread arrangements. A humble but perfect journey through 70‘s underground styles. Imagine all your favorite obscure German bands condensed into one album..."
Kartovsky Green Records
"Is that a Theremin we do hear on Die Geister Beschwören’s ‘On My Moneth’s Minde’ from their Tarkovsky Greem imprint release, all wonderfully woozy death folk..."
www.spoolsoutradio.wordpress.com
"This issue comprises a couple of lengthy compositions which in turn used to chime like mind-boggling patchworks where sound snippets from different sources are followed by one another with great subtlety. More profoundly, it is from immersed indie folk/Americana and drone folk numbers and steamboat-alike ghastly epic brass sections (which sort of has always made difference in fact) to dark ambient and concrete music blended endeavours and post-classical sublime orchestrations based on vowel effects. The result is organic and sonically logic which in turn does mean there is up a mesmerizing whole for your pleasure. Very well done indeed..."
www.agier.blogspot.com
"Die Geister Beschwören translates to “call up the ghosts.” And I have to admit, I had to look up the exact meaning of defenestration, which is: “the act of throwing a thing (or especially a person) out of a window.” This Portland experimental folk ensemble certainly does both in this intricate 17-minute sonic spree recently released on SQRT Records. Laden with field recordings, aching string and bass clarinet orchestrations and loops, haunting drums, and vocals, it paints a lush, if not eerie, mental picture.
It’s artfully-layered and quite well-paced. Let me put it this way: I started out doing stretches and meditation to it, but 4 minutes in I found myself pacing the floors thinking, “This would be an amazing soundtrack if I ever have a rapid descent into terrifying madness and an eventual reawakening to my highest self!” Both menacing and beautiful, The Great Defenestration is one intriguing fall from a window..."
Leah Brzezinski, Savage Henry Magazine
"It took me three tries to get through The Great Defenestration in its entirety. Please know I mean that as a compliment. I have a great deal of trauma surrounding dreams I had every night when I was a kid, and Die Geister Beschwören brought back those feelings in a profound and chilling way. When I finally reached the end of the track, however, I felt more like I was coming out of a meditation than a nightmare. Truly amazing work..."
Engine Driver Presents
"Brilliant experimental psychedelic folk album, nice variation in tracks, like a soundtrack..."
droningearth.wordpress.com
"Wicked cool classical guitar with ambient backgrounds..."
Fly Awake Tea Garden
"From the USA comes the otherwise German-sounding group Die Geister Beschwören moving towards a less traditional and more experimental plot. They may sound like the soundtrack to the nightmare you had last night, with their almost chanting musical experiments, but they still know how to compose music with breathtaking moods..."
www.undertoner.
“Those Who Came Before…” is a rather lovely psychedelically infused twelve track album. When I first listened to this, it reminded me of Six Organs Of Admittance..."
Reverb Worship Records
"Recorded by Oryan Peterson-Jones of the long running psych collective Datura Blues, Those Who Came Before... is an album of beautiful instrumentation combined with field recordings and found sounds, and brings to mind Six Organs Of Admittance and Ghost. Highly recommended..."
No Magic Man Records
"Indo-influenced, multi-voiced instrumental music your thing? Then try "Those Who Came Before..." by Die Geister Beschwören, essentially multi-instrumentalist Oryan Peterson-Jones, with two guests on this very interesting album. Oryan plays guitars, sitar, synths, percussion and a host of ethnic instruments, so this is a varied brew indeed. Opening with the briefest of sitar and voice cuts, the first track proper fuses electric guitars with percussion and synths to make a trippy cut. 'Redbird 1: Krvavy Krk' is softer and tripper, with acoustic guitars duelling with synths and sundry sound effects. This and the flutes of the following cut reminded me a lot of my own early albums with Mooch - quite a surreal experience. Sitars and electric guitars return to the fore for 'Ars Notoria' (hints of Saddar Bazaar here), while 'Imprague 2: The Hunter's Moon' is a kind of Afro-noise journey through underworld regions. 'Donner Pass...' is a particularly nice, and rather too short track, as is the following '... Angel's Rest' - some lovely ambient textures and moods here. The final track 'Casa Cometa' is by far the longest on the album, merging softly plucked guitars, birdsong, synths, sounds, voices and more into a very fine track. This is an excellent album that fans of world music and electronica should enjoy..."
Ptolemaic Terrascope
"Die Geister Beschwören are not a German band as I assumed when I first grabbed this CD off the review pile, but is in fact the brainchild of a certain ‘Oryan Peterson-Jones’ of Portland/Austin, who used to live with Ben Chasny as far as I gather from the press release. Peterson-Jones plays all manner of instruments on here, many of which I’ve never heard of (Balagma, anyone? Phin? Gopiyantra? No, me neither), so it’s fair to say that there’s a certain “ethnomusicological” bent here, but actually the main feel is one of gentle pastoral psych-folk with soft tones and lilting rhythms and some nice tones, both familiar and unfamiliar. The primary instrument through the album is guitar. The sounds are pretty much exclusively organic (unless you count the odd touch of synthesizer, which is particularly effective in closer ‘Casa Cometa’) and this is a collection of a dozen reasonably concise instrumentals which are consistently melodic and accessible. The East-meets-West tranquil vibes are immediately bringing to mind Orfanado, or maybe Ass with more adventurous instrumentation. Six Organs’ acoustic stuff is also a slightly lazy but worthwhile comparison. It’s a heady, exotic and intoxicating trip, but never overwhelming..."
Norman Records
"Die Geister Beschwören, Oryan Peterson-Jones’ (of Portland’s Datura Blues) fascinating solo project is an oddball showcase of multi-instrumental, experimental folk pieces interspersed with ambient moans and field recordings. The twelve exploratory tracks highlight multiple ethnic influences and rhythms, particularly fadó, flamenco and gypsy, melded with traditional melodic structures and natural sounds. “Some Become Birds” features trippy whistles, layers of woodwinds and strings, and some gorgeous sitar parts that pierce like sun glaring off a building. And I want to belly dance Bond-girl-style to the ominous “Donner Pass.” My favorite track is the ten-minute “Casa Cometa,” a field recording of chirping songbirds interspersed with gentle guitars, buzzy synth and looped guttural chanting. I’d totally take a relaxing eucalyptus bath to it on repeat. “Those Who Came Before...” is surprisingly soothing and meditative after a few listens, but still weird enough to keep your ear at work..."
Leah Brzezinski, Savage Henry Magazine
"Ah, dammit. Die Geister Bechwören, your band’s name got me all excited (okay, intrigued, really, not so much excited), thinking you were a band actually from Germany, or maybe at the very least some kind of Grimm tribute band, and yet, no, you’re just from Austin. Sigh. To make things murkier still, DGB is apparently the solo work of a guy named Oryan Peterson-Jones, whose main band is actually called Datura Blues, which is less a “band” and more a rotating bunch of musos split between Austin and Portland, Oregon. This particular incarnation bills itself as “experimental folk,” and yeah, that’s not far off the mark- the music I’ve been able to hear so far is loose and psych-influenced, with lots of washes of sound, fuzzy guitars, and random bits of flute and other instruments tossed in at random to these fragile-sounding acoustic guitar compositions that come off like brief, hypnotic mantras more than anything else..."
www.spacecityrock.com
Ptolemaic Terrascope
"A split cassette release of 25 copies on the tiny boutique label, Tandem Tapes out of Jakarta, Indonesia... This cassette arrived in an elaborately designed mailing bag, decorated with collages, featuring Prince on one side and Superman on the other and immediately grabbed my attention. This is the work of Joey Binhammer in Portland, Oregon and Oryan Peterson Jones from up there in Humboldt County, California, amongst the giant redwoods (Oryan is also a collective member of Datura Blues). The record is a split with Helena Espvall, a member of Terrascope favourites Espers, whom Oryan and Joey met at a festival in Denmark. Side one is a lengthy experimental sound collage called The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore featuring massed hushed chorals, bird song, thunder storms, rushing waters, slide guitar, synth’s, banjo and percussion, along with snippets of spooky dialogue and all manner of strange sounds, taking in along the way a bit of African primitive and American blues drone. Helena’s side consists of three tunes “I Andanam” a sparse, sonorous harmonic piece featuring I believe harp, treated cello and synth. “Som Mareld” a short gentle, experimental and languid tone piece, provides some balm for the soul before a blast of heavily amped cello wakes up the senses, with the final track on this cassette “For Leucothea," this one being quite psychedelic and slightly distorted..."
Ptolemaic Terrascope
"Despite their name, Die Geister Beschwören appears to hail from greater Cascadia, from parts of Oregon and Northern California. And despite adopting a spectral name in German, their contribution to Ball of Wax 48 is in Spanish. “Cerro de la Muerte,” translating to “Hill of the Dead,” is a brief, feverish, Lynchian dream of a Mississippi blues song that serves as more interlude than fully-formed song. It’s evocative and atmospheric, like if “Dueling Banjos” from Deliverance was somehow dropped into El Topo..."
Ball of Wax
"This Ball of Wax #48 compilation release party features a rare appearance by the Arcata, California/Portland group Die Geister Beschworen, led by Oryan Peterson-Jones. Local scene vets may remember him from his mid-’00s psych- and post-rock bands Datura Blues and Beast, Please Be Still (they are still active, but now mostly based in Portland). Enough history; let’s discuss DGB’s engrossing music. On their well-stocked Bandcamp, you can find exceptional works like 2015’s Music Feeds Stars, a suite of outward-bound folk-rock that harks back to those early-’00s Weird America (™ The Wire magazine) days. Alternately dense and diaphanous, these songs seed pastoral tropes with strange aural flora and fauna. This year’s “The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore”—on a split release with Espers’ Helena Espvall—is a disorienting studio dream marked by children singing “Happy Birthday” amid a menacing, industrial-folk panorama..."
DAVE SEGAL, The Stranger
"When Oryan Peterson-Jones made contact to point me towards this album, he wrote “recommended if you like Six Organs Of Admittance, Sun City Girls, Ghost, Earth, Dirty Three, etc”. Thus he established a record of sorts, naming an entire clutch of bands of which – believe it or not – I never heard a note. Perhaps this lack of material for comparison is what let me appreciate Drawn To The Investigation Of Shadows more over the course of scattered plays in the last five months or so. In fact, beyond illustrious reputations and stylistic dimensions, this work was evidently designed with finely tuned ears and a definite taste for instrumental abstraction of the purest variety; furthermore, as the thing lasts less than 32 minutes, the risk of weariness is excluded from the beginning. And, did you see how many people helped? In spite of the numerous hands and voices, the music does not reveal itself as untidy or wild: everything appears to be at the right place in the right moment.
So, let the reviewer continue the game initiated by this Portland artist, namely that of finding points of entry in the psychedelic-but-not-too-much universe depicted by the two tracks. Consider that the project’s name translates as “call up the ghosts”, and that peaceful guitars, strings and theremins are prominent in establishing atmospheres between dreamy and bucolic, in any case quite removed from “urban” contaminations. However, keep also in mind that you won’t find the witless trademarks of drugged disorganization: no “warped nightmare” vocals, no low-cost replicas of Pink Floyd’s taped laughs, no amorphous bullshit justified by third-rate “cosmic trips”. The basic substances are predominantly folk-tinged, occasionally (and intelligently) utilizing field recordings and anthemic streams with just the necessary hints to remote latitudes and resonant auras, plus a few unexpected solutions warranting the birth of authentic interest in the listener. If anything, the lone entity to which I managed to relate Peterson-Jones’ vision is my old buddy Mirko Uhlig (currently AWOL) in his Aalfang Mit Pferdekopf embodiment. The genuineness of the intuitions and the credibility of the orchestral vibrancy are indeed pretty similar. In a nutshell, this music is still innocent. Enough for me to sing its praises..."
www.touchingextremes.wordpress.com
"Krautrock collective from Portland, Oregon. Multiple textures of music with widespread arrangements. A humble but perfect journey through 70‘s underground styles. Imagine all your favorite obscure German bands condensed into one album..."
Kartovsky Green Records
"Is that a Theremin we do hear on Die Geister Beschwören’s ‘On My Moneth’s Minde’ from their Tarkovsky Greem imprint release, all wonderfully woozy death folk..."
www.spoolsoutradio.wordpress.com
"This issue comprises a couple of lengthy compositions which in turn used to chime like mind-boggling patchworks where sound snippets from different sources are followed by one another with great subtlety. More profoundly, it is from immersed indie folk/Americana and drone folk numbers and steamboat-alike ghastly epic brass sections (which sort of has always made difference in fact) to dark ambient and concrete music blended endeavours and post-classical sublime orchestrations based on vowel effects. The result is organic and sonically logic which in turn does mean there is up a mesmerizing whole for your pleasure. Very well done indeed..."
www.agier.blogspot.com
"Die Geister Beschwören translates to “call up the ghosts.” And I have to admit, I had to look up the exact meaning of defenestration, which is: “the act of throwing a thing (or especially a person) out of a window.” This Portland experimental folk ensemble certainly does both in this intricate 17-minute sonic spree recently released on SQRT Records. Laden with field recordings, aching string and bass clarinet orchestrations and loops, haunting drums, and vocals, it paints a lush, if not eerie, mental picture.
It’s artfully-layered and quite well-paced. Let me put it this way: I started out doing stretches and meditation to it, but 4 minutes in I found myself pacing the floors thinking, “This would be an amazing soundtrack if I ever have a rapid descent into terrifying madness and an eventual reawakening to my highest self!” Both menacing and beautiful, The Great Defenestration is one intriguing fall from a window..."
Leah Brzezinski, Savage Henry Magazine
"It took me three tries to get through The Great Defenestration in its entirety. Please know I mean that as a compliment. I have a great deal of trauma surrounding dreams I had every night when I was a kid, and Die Geister Beschwören brought back those feelings in a profound and chilling way. When I finally reached the end of the track, however, I felt more like I was coming out of a meditation than a nightmare. Truly amazing work..."
Engine Driver Presents
"Brilliant experimental psychedelic folk album, nice variation in tracks, like a soundtrack..."
droningearth.wordpress.com
"Wicked cool classical guitar with ambient backgrounds..."
Fly Awake Tea Garden
"From the USA comes the otherwise German-sounding group Die Geister Beschwören moving towards a less traditional and more experimental plot. They may sound like the soundtrack to the nightmare you had last night, with their almost chanting musical experiments, but they still know how to compose music with breathtaking moods..."
www.undertoner.
“Those Who Came Before…” is a rather lovely psychedelically infused twelve track album. When I first listened to this, it reminded me of Six Organs Of Admittance..."
Reverb Worship Records
"Recorded by Oryan Peterson-Jones of the long running psych collective Datura Blues, Those Who Came Before... is an album of beautiful instrumentation combined with field recordings and found sounds, and brings to mind Six Organs Of Admittance and Ghost. Highly recommended..."
No Magic Man Records
"Indo-influenced, multi-voiced instrumental music your thing? Then try "Those Who Came Before..." by Die Geister Beschwören, essentially multi-instrumentalist Oryan Peterson-Jones, with two guests on this very interesting album. Oryan plays guitars, sitar, synths, percussion and a host of ethnic instruments, so this is a varied brew indeed. Opening with the briefest of sitar and voice cuts, the first track proper fuses electric guitars with percussion and synths to make a trippy cut. 'Redbird 1: Krvavy Krk' is softer and tripper, with acoustic guitars duelling with synths and sundry sound effects. This and the flutes of the following cut reminded me a lot of my own early albums with Mooch - quite a surreal experience. Sitars and electric guitars return to the fore for 'Ars Notoria' (hints of Saddar Bazaar here), while 'Imprague 2: The Hunter's Moon' is a kind of Afro-noise journey through underworld regions. 'Donner Pass...' is a particularly nice, and rather too short track, as is the following '... Angel's Rest' - some lovely ambient textures and moods here. The final track 'Casa Cometa' is by far the longest on the album, merging softly plucked guitars, birdsong, synths, sounds, voices and more into a very fine track. This is an excellent album that fans of world music and electronica should enjoy..."
Ptolemaic Terrascope
"Die Geister Beschwören are not a German band as I assumed when I first grabbed this CD off the review pile, but is in fact the brainchild of a certain ‘Oryan Peterson-Jones’ of Portland/Austin, who used to live with Ben Chasny as far as I gather from the press release. Peterson-Jones plays all manner of instruments on here, many of which I’ve never heard of (Balagma, anyone? Phin? Gopiyantra? No, me neither), so it’s fair to say that there’s a certain “ethnomusicological” bent here, but actually the main feel is one of gentle pastoral psych-folk with soft tones and lilting rhythms and some nice tones, both familiar and unfamiliar. The primary instrument through the album is guitar. The sounds are pretty much exclusively organic (unless you count the odd touch of synthesizer, which is particularly effective in closer ‘Casa Cometa’) and this is a collection of a dozen reasonably concise instrumentals which are consistently melodic and accessible. The East-meets-West tranquil vibes are immediately bringing to mind Orfanado, or maybe Ass with more adventurous instrumentation. Six Organs’ acoustic stuff is also a slightly lazy but worthwhile comparison. It’s a heady, exotic and intoxicating trip, but never overwhelming..."
Norman Records
"Die Geister Beschwören, Oryan Peterson-Jones’ (of Portland’s Datura Blues) fascinating solo project is an oddball showcase of multi-instrumental, experimental folk pieces interspersed with ambient moans and field recordings. The twelve exploratory tracks highlight multiple ethnic influences and rhythms, particularly fadó, flamenco and gypsy, melded with traditional melodic structures and natural sounds. “Some Become Birds” features trippy whistles, layers of woodwinds and strings, and some gorgeous sitar parts that pierce like sun glaring off a building. And I want to belly dance Bond-girl-style to the ominous “Donner Pass.” My favorite track is the ten-minute “Casa Cometa,” a field recording of chirping songbirds interspersed with gentle guitars, buzzy synth and looped guttural chanting. I’d totally take a relaxing eucalyptus bath to it on repeat. “Those Who Came Before...” is surprisingly soothing and meditative after a few listens, but still weird enough to keep your ear at work..."
Leah Brzezinski, Savage Henry Magazine
"Ah, dammit. Die Geister Bechwören, your band’s name got me all excited (okay, intrigued, really, not so much excited), thinking you were a band actually from Germany, or maybe at the very least some kind of Grimm tribute band, and yet, no, you’re just from Austin. Sigh. To make things murkier still, DGB is apparently the solo work of a guy named Oryan Peterson-Jones, whose main band is actually called Datura Blues, which is less a “band” and more a rotating bunch of musos split between Austin and Portland, Oregon. This particular incarnation bills itself as “experimental folk,” and yeah, that’s not far off the mark- the music I’ve been able to hear so far is loose and psych-influenced, with lots of washes of sound, fuzzy guitars, and random bits of flute and other instruments tossed in at random to these fragile-sounding acoustic guitar compositions that come off like brief, hypnotic mantras more than anything else..."
www.spacecityrock.com
