Flying Canyon :: “S/T” - Soft Abuse
There’s no coincidence when you seek out the rare and fragile artifacts left behind by Bay Area-based legends Flying Canyon that, you may also find this ghostly gold mine of atmospheric anomalies such as Wooden Wand, Six Organs Of Admittance, The Skygreen Leopards/Donovan Quinn, Jack Rose, Tom Carter or MV & EE, to name a few. A ripple of retro response to something sacred and sensationally spiritual, the early to mid-2000s was simply a time and place in music, culture, and creativity that is now perfectly preserved while simultaneously transcending the tonal temperatures of a decade that is significantly mourned by a generation longing for simpler times. The group’s sound and historical harmony is sonically secured in the amber of space and time like most of its poetic peers and is ready to be discovered or rediscovered by the world that has since moved on in the reverberating race towards whatever it is we’re unwillingly gravitating towards. Consisting of members Glenn Donaldson — Jewelled Antler and Shayde Sartin of such notable acts as The Sky Green Leopards and Fiant Skyflower band, a brief drop-in by Quinn himself, and of course, the late Michael Cayce Lindner, a father, husband, and teacher who passed shortly after the band’s lone, self-titled album was released in 2006. While capturing the ever-crackling cosmic events located in the album's fabulous fibers, Flying Canyon reached a sort of sutra-type situation in their short yet incredibly inspiring career. Still, as time marches on, these elements tend to change and alter in a way that gives the music and its community of consciousness a deeper and more prolific meaning outside of simply just being a band.
Capturing the rich, righteous nature and heart of the West Coast and its Mission District magic, where Lindner and members casually conjured the steadiness of the town’s equal parts radicalness and artistic renaissance on a reel-to-reel machine that, to this day, still excites and invigorates the minds of people both new and old to its historic hypnosis. Without too many live performances and never the less, the material, the band’s legend, and lyrical legacy have only grown in melodic mystery and sonic significance as anniversaries reach their two-decade mark. Across the album’s nine tracks of “Youngian” storytelling and the cosmic cinematic atmosphere that completely encapsulates the material’s manifested magic, Lindner’s mesmerizing ability to casually call on the esoteric elements of energy, emotion, and visual grandeur is impeccable. With tracks like “The Bull Who Knew the Ring,” which Lindner wrote in a matter of minutes, the album’s epic opener “In The Reflection,” and “This Can't be My Home” all sawn dive into the crucial caverns of the listener’s mind by separating every individual atom of the human design and reverse its complicated commotion with spiritually sterile peace-seeking clarity of the highest order. The album’s complex core is both revealing yet perfectly preserved within its functioning fibers as each track bears its simplistic soul with electrifying echoes and seamless praise for the seance of sound.
“I told him we should call the album “Cayce Lindner,” but he insisted we make it into a band. So I called it Flying Canyon, a name I had on my big list of band names for a while. I imagined being in a daze with the world reversed, laying back in the clouds with the canyon flying over you. It sounded like the name of a classic rock band to me.”
Harmonisouly harnessing the rapture of honesty and harmony found in the soothing scriptures of the group’s whispering world, Flying Canyon, a name inspired by Glenn Donaldson’s never-ending list of future project titles, wrestled with the fearfully terrifying landscapes of the human condition like many before them, but something Lindner mastered was the truly romantic nature of songwriting during the projects short, yet significantly potent life amongst the clouds and natural world. In high demand for a much-needed reissue since its original release in 2006 on Soft Abuse, the mosiac memory of Lindner and the band is a miracle in that it happened at all. We forget that music shouldn’t be quickly measured by a like or a don’t like. It’s never that simple, and without any rhyme or reason in between, we discard its bountiful bones and exit the room swiftly, no questions asked. Flying Canyon brings together the perfect blend of melody, poetry, and prolific psyche in a way that is truly celebrated for being the timeless classic it is. While still lurking in the dynamical depths of deep space, or the ionosphere of the internet, its radiance only growing brighter, the band is still brand new in its legendary dormancy, waiting to inspire a whole new generation of listeners after its exciting excavation from the earth’s primitive crust is initiated.
