Salt On Sunday is the experimental project of Adam R. Bryant which explores boundaries between reality and folklore, connections to one’s ancestors through memories and traditions, and blurs the lines between genre realms. `Salt On Sunday` according to Adam “leans more heavily into the experimental spectrum but is also more ‘music-y’ than my previous releases. The project started after taking some deep dives into my family history, growing up in the states and being raised by a Campanian grandmother.” This latest album `A Docket of Votive Offerings` is released this month.
We are introduced to the album via ‘janara’, which is titled after the term for the witches of the region of Campania, Italy. The artist`s ancestors were apparently accused of witchcraft, and this song explores the interlinking of folklore and regional traditions with one’s own family history. It`s an almost doom tinged offering with a kind of subdued almost repressed underbelly of unease. The lyrical content for `ancestor veneration` is Adam reading off the arrest paperwork for his great, great grandmother’s witch accusation and jail time and was placed as a curve ball in the track listing. A fairly hypnotic piece with a rhythmic drumbeat, guiding bass line, recurring guitar riff and breathy almost indistinguishable vocals. It almost pauses halfway before resuming with distant jazz like soundbites as it draws to an end and fades.
`Everything is numb and i can no longer tell the difference between time` races along with a vibrating bass line and regular drum beat and melds a kind of surf rock vibe with quietly controlled unclean death metal vocals. It becomes noisier in the last couple of minutes. Oddly enchanting. An art piece by Do Ho Suh gives name to `transportable architecture`, a piece that is nigh on trace like with growled vocals almost inaudibly shared beneath the repetitive musical soundscape.
I read that `sotto il nocce di Benevento` or under the Benevento walnut tree is a drone piece, designed to give the album breathing space and deliver warmth through the musical texture. The Benevento walnut tree is apparently the subject of a legend about witches and wizards and does have a slight spellbinding texture. The artist has said that `ti voglio bene` or I love you, follows a more traditional structure, a kind of melodic submission with underlying restrained unclean vocals.
`ai will write my obituary` is a fairly captivating listen which has accordion and mandolin within its dreamlike auditory appeal. The album closes out with `appropriate violence` which has samples of The Godfather in it because according to the artist, “that was the end of my ancestor’s journey to the states”. A weird combination of auditory sounds and samples.
Although I imagine `A Docket of Votive Offerings` would be filed under uneasy listening, for me there was a possibly unhealthy peculiar, strange beauty or attraction to it. Take a listen and judge for yourself.
Rating 8 / 10
