Behold: a flourishing, progressive rock-inspired sector of Austin's long-fabled psych scene. KUTX named the costumed, 13-piece funk collective Grandmaster its June Artist of the Month; self-proclaimed "bozo rockers from space" Gumma emerged from a three-year recording hiatus to release the November LP Sweetness of Nothing; and, oh yeah - Nolan Potter continues to issue a plethora of protracted sonic experiments, either alone or with his Nightmare Band.
Dillon Fernandez has long backed Potter on guitar, so it's no surprise that his solo project would revel in the pocket of a similar cosmic realm. Performed, recorded, and engineered entirely by the multi-instrumentalist himself, Dark Times in the Land of Plenty landed on Bandcamp Dec. 5 as Fernandez's second full-length album as Bernardo Mountainair.
Like its predecessor, 2023's Songs of Space & Time, Dark Times was initially conceived during the pandemic, though its delayed world premiere - some six weeks before Donald Trump's reinauguration - feels equally prescient. Still, despite its dire political origins, the record doesn't wallow - sonically, at least. Instead, its seven tracks ring out long and pleasant, slow-swirling guitars and spacey synths concocting a blissful, multi-suite experience.
Take "Bloodlust," track two after the whimsical crescendo of opener/lead single "It's What You Feel," which possesses no such vengeful energy. Twinkling keyboards and heavy reverb ooze like a Mac DeMarco song, and Fernandez sings of our collective downward spiral ("I fear the worst is yet to come," "It's not alright, I say") with the same serene quality as that Canadian slacker. Later, a tinny drum machine beat propels "Deine Mütze Bitte," German for "your hat please," where the artist's boyish vocals again accept an uncertain future. "The world is going to change and you will see/ That there's more to life and anything you could ever ask to be," he promises.
Bernardo Mountainair evades positive monotony with the occasional tone shift. Initially a relaxed bossa nova, 10-minute centerpiece "Mirrored Vision" smartly leaves the jazz club behind about halfway through and rockets into space instead. The track's lush instrumentals drop off, leaving only one sinister guitar line, then 8-bit synths, and, finally, the type of downtuned vocals you'd attribute to a masked cartoon villain.
This grim downturn flows into "A Pensive Moment in Chaos," a Dark Side of the Moon-style atmospheric breather where slow-strummed chords and a sampled voice pondering "vibrations of color" and "vibrations of sound" offer a contemplative halfway-mark pause. Only a temporary sulk, of course, that external voice reminds us: "The important thing is to be able to come back to reality" - and cues our David Gilmour to sing his own words.
Wrapping with "Vape Her Wave" - a play on the niche 2010s genre vaporwave - Dark Times reinstates Fernandez's sense of humor, though the closer opts for more live-recorded originals, not chopped and screwed jazz loops. "It feels like I just might lose my mind this time," the auteur croons, while his guitar gently weeps.
The world is ending, Bernardo Mountainair knows. On Dark Times in the Land of Plenty, however, he wonders: Why not go out with a good soundtrack?
The Vernon Reid-approved Gen Z rockers blend punk and metal on LP 2.
"High All Night" (Green Witch Recordings)
Hazy synths and smoky horns seduce in this one-off single.
Ofrenda (Posi-Tone Records)
The UT jazz professor's tenor saxophone anchors his third album of 2024.