NIGHT MUSIC: American Memory

American Memory by Imperial Valley.

It’s 2025. A fledgling dictator is seated in the Oval Office. There is talk of trade wars, of mass deportations, of reduced reproductive rights for women. In southern California a lone field recordist roams the Mexican border, cataloging the sounds of the desert. Glamis, Acolita Sand Hills, ghosts of Obregon.

Outside Yuma the power lines hum a lonesome ditch-bank blues. On the dustroads off the I-8 the car’s radio skips between stations. Amid the music and the static there are voices from a different century, but the fears they speak of are timeless. Isolation, deprivation, powerlessness…

A gorgeous but sombre piece of post-rock “ditch-bank blues.” RAISE YR SKINNY FISTS-era Godspeed! playing at a funeral.