It’s impossible that great artists doing their work with a guitar were just… people. We all know that Robert Johnson was given his powers by the Devil, George Harrison was a yogic teacher tasked with infiltrating the world’s biggest pop group and Bob Dylan is William Shakespeare reincarnated in the American Midwest. They’re not just people with clever ideas and knowledge of guitar chords!
And, let’s keep things this way. Let songs feel like magic spells cast upon us, like things that were written in the stars. Let’s fight against all of the cheesy autobiographies describing the ordinary lives of outstanding rock stars. And, let us vow to never look at another social media post in which one of the rockstars shares what kind of salad they had for lunch.
Afton Wolfe believes in music as a tool for something more grandiose than just pairing rhymes with a jingle, or, at very least, respects his audience enough to give it a mystery to hold onto. His latest collection of songs, which make up the “Ophiuchus” album, was strategically released to coincide with the Sun’s trajectory and the monthly shift of zodiac signs.
Wolfe proudly declares that this is nothing less than an intended spell. The purpose of it, he also admits, is not yet clear, giving listeners something of a mission, of a choose-your-own-adventure type of experience.
The real question is whether all of this impacts the actual sound? Of course it does. Just take a listen to the title track, where Wolfe proclaims himself to be “The Medicine Man,” and where, over an instrumental that feels like the blues being taken back into the desert of North Africa, the singer proclaims to the one who holds both the poison and cure to those who will have it.
If it sounds like Wolfe is playing for big odds here, that’s no excuse. This feels like Tom Waits writing an esoteric blues-folk record meant to soundtrack “Lawrence of Arabia.”
On the tango-influenced “Rules of War,” Afton Wolfe uses his ability to see into the future and announces that the industry of war is bound to wait for you there. On “Last King of the Blues,” he sings of someone gifted with never-ending pain. And, “Ascetic Sleep Song No 4,” Wolfe’s mournful baritone murmurs about being helpless to help the ones he really cares about.
And while there’s a mystic blues vibe in the air, it’s not the kind of ceremony where you need to sit barefoot and take your hat off. There’s room for hope as on “Dream Song,” breaks dedicated to having fun, such as on the instrumental Lou Reed meets Neutral Milk Hotel of “Sphere Shift,” and even hopefulness as on “Forgive Yourself.”
But where does it all leave us? On the closing track, “Invocation,” Wolfe pulls off the greatest magician’s trick and, by the sounds of it, tries to help us accept this world as it is. Yes, “Ophiuchus” brings to mind the junkyard blues operas of Tom Waits, but Afton Wolfe, cleverly, takes things into an unexpected, cosmic direction that is all his own.
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