By Charley Ruddell
The mysticism of Joshua Tree National Park precedes its serenity. Ghost stories of the desert are as abundant as black-tailed jackrabbits. Spirits emanate from the sand. It’s within these dunes where Jesse Carsten of Portland, Oregon’s Half Shadow wrote the sparse “House of Unknowing,” a single off his Dream Weather Its Electric Song released last October.
Half Shadow’s video for “House of Unknowing” emphasizes the uncanny wonders of the human world. Through pictures of ancient sites of reverence and self-portrait cutouts, Carsten explores the historic venues of God and men using stop motion animation. Bongos rattle as Carsten manipulates the surrounding land and architecture, his deadpan croon unraveling heady epithets: “The seeds of silence bloom in the doorway, space expands to include everything.” The cryptic, folkloric poetry reads as the early conjurings of man in barren land with only the guiding light of mystic divinity, implied with a soft touch. Carsten’s voice doubles and triples with harmonies that echo as the anxious assertations of village settlers.
Half Shadow’s underlying bohemia gives a more contemporary breath to an otherwise psychedelic dwelling in the pietism of yore. There’s moments of Mark Kozelek and Brigette Fontaine in the poetic cadences; the eastern influence of John Frusciante in his dark age ring in the drones.
Carsten’s hands reach out to the last remains of human reverence on earth with an almost plea-like urgency. The landmarks return a steadfast silence, and man is once again left pondering into the void.