Disciples of California

Disciples of California

The Skygreen Leopards are the most prolific and accessible arm of the Bay Area-based Jeweled Antler Collective, a varied assortment of likeminded musicians who have been recording diffuse, mystically informed and obliquely experimental folk music since the beginning of the ‘00s under a seemingly endless number of guises (The Buried Civilizations, Tomes, Blithe Sons, The Ivy Tree). The Skygreen Leopards’ songwriter and de facto front man Glenn Donaldson sits at the center of this sprawling collective, and though most Jeweled Antler acts favor occasionally revelatory but often indulgent forays into experimental recording techniques and dissonant arrangements, the Skygreen Leopards make relatively approachable folk-pop that blends the cracked aesthetic of Syd Barrett with Neil Young’s druggy California country strum. Indeed, where previous Leopards’ outings meandered along uncertainly, their 2006 release Disciples of California taps into the relaxed country shuffle of Young’s Harvest and late period Byrds albums like The Ballad of Easy Rider. The results are consistently compelling, resulting in the groups’ strongest full-length effort to date.

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