These Trails

Whenever a modern band attempts to recreate the warped sincerity of a genuine late '60s/early '70s acid-folk record, it simply never works. Approaching this music as an artifact to be mimicked (either with sincerity or, god forbid, irony) invariably taints its wide-eyed innocence, which is why the likes of Devendra Banhart could never make an album anywhere near as winsome or charming as These Trails. The Hawaiian duo of singer Margaret Morgan and guitarist Patrick Cockett almost certainly had an LP collection that included favorites from the early '70s Laurel Canyon scene (in particular Joni Mitchell, whom Morgan vocally resembles in her higher range, and Tim Buckley) alongside slightly earlier and more idiosyncratic acts like Pearls Before Swine and The Incredible String Band. The 12 songs are based around Cockett's delicate acoustic guitar figures (sometimes in the native slack-key style) and Morgan's crystalline vocals, although on several tracks David Choy adds shimmering ARP synthesizer lines that with nearly four decades of hindsight connect the album both to early electronic pioneers like Morton Subotnick and to '90s retro-futurists of the Stereolab ilk. As is often the case in acid folk, there's a certain sameness to the earnest songs, although arrangement touches like the flutes on the title track and occasional peppier tunes like "Rapt Attention" do a fine job of changing things up. Fans of the style will likely find this 1973 private-press obscurity (reissued in 2011 by Drag City) up there with Linda Perhacs' Paralellograms as a rediscovered gem.