Califone Dreams of the Heron King

It’s fitting that Califone’s new record, Heron King Blues, get its inspiration from the mists of antiquity and the dream world of band-founder Tim Rutili, since this is a group whose music virtually defies time, conjuring up ancient, primal rhythms and beats and transporting them to the 21st century of electronica and tape manipulations.

The earliest recorded manifestation of the Heron King recently reached Rutili—via author Robert Graves’ Claudius the God—from the ancient era of Roman rule in Britain (roughly, from 43 A.D. to 450 A.D.). Toward the end of this era, a battalion from the disintegrating empire learned of an ancient Druid god—the Heron King— that inspired unholy fear in the pagan locals. Putting a soldier on stilts, disguising him with heron mask and feathers, and sending the apparition into the opposition’s camp, the Roman ploy terrorized the Briton tribe into fleeing en masse.

It was too little, too late for the Romans, but for Rutili—who since childhood has been visited in dreams by a mysterious half-man, half-bird figure—it’s imaginative and musical fodder. After stumbling upon the historical Heron King, Califone’s principal songwriter decided to use what the image once represented and now suggested as a metaphor, framework and theme for the group’s third full-length studio recording.

“I always took it that this bird thing wasn’t just in my dreams anyway,” Rutili says over the phone phone from the group’s hometown of Chicago. “It always seemed like this messenger … ‘You better come to terms with your nature.’ I think it means we should all examine what we believe in and question it.”

Since its inception in 1998 as a Rutili-led, Red Red Meat spin-off, Califone’s music has settled in its own niche—a work-in-progress that happens to include a myriad of familiar elements. Whether waste-deep in swamp-infested blues, mining Appalachian country and ageless folk veins (ala Harry Smith’s field recordings), or knob-twiddling tape-loops and overdubs of beat-rich electronica, Califone’s era-hopping and cross-pollination evokes the unreal sequences of dreams.

Once you add Rutili’s elliptical lyrics, fecund imagery, non-traditional song structure and timeworn voice—and a no-bass, dual percussionist, primitive-but-eternal rhythm attack, the effect is indelibly dream-like, as though, on waking, you find yourself half-asleep in a state where time is nothing if not malleable. Perishable Records, the group’s own label, even features an “E-mail us your dreams” feature on its website.

It’s no surprise then that the new record is at once familiar, amiable and also disconcerting—not unlike the average recurring dream. After last year’s shimmering pop-inflected Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, which featured a majority of songs written by Rutili prior to entering the studio, Califone went in to record Heron King Blues with a different agenda last June. Rutili and company’s original intention was to simply complete an EP to tour behind; to have an excuse to get back on the road. But the band was also mindful of friends and fans—not to mention its own desires—who suggested a record reminiscent of the group’s more improvisational live performances.

This struck another chord with Rutili and his bandmates (percussionist Ben Massarella, drummer Joe Adamik, and multi-instrumentalist Jim Becker), one that reached all the way back to Captain Beefheart’s 1970 record, Mirror Man. A long-time Califone touchstone, it featured four lengthy improvisational songs including the title track, a one-take, 15-minute, two-chord guitar vamp over which Beefheart’s band experimented. It also resonated with Califone’s rootsy side, another constant wellspring of inspiration.

“Every show we play I’m always thinking about that record,” Rutili says, citing both the thick groove and improvisational wonders of Mirror Man. “It always seems closer to Robert Johnson and Charlie Patton than just about anything.”

Califone’s new record features some songs created from scratch in the studio, put directly to tape and recorded with as few overdubs as possible. The title-track, a nearly 15-minute long, single-take, blues- and funk-heavy improvisation, is a direct ode to Beefheart.

Also created mainly on the spot while the tape rolled were “Trick Bird,” which sounds like Nixon-era Lambchop, with Rutili taking a strong Curtis Mayfield turn at the microphone; “Apple,” which has a dub feel, thick percussion and a meandering melody line, the sum almost reminiscent of Peter Gabriel’s instrumental soundtrack, Passion (which Massarella said he listened to “endlessly” upon its release); and “2 Sisters Drunk on Each Other,” featuring a drum’n’bass attack—with ringer Will Hendricks on bass—on top of which the band lays down an ass-rattlin’, Talking Heads-like dance groove.

The other three tracks— written exclusively by Rutili— are more structured and will immediately have fans hearkening back to the country-blues feel of Roomsound (2001) and Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, especially the sparse, transcendent opener, “Wingbone.” A perfect segue from the previous disc’s finale (the skeletal “Stepdaughter”), “Wingbone” features Rutili on his rich-toned, open-tuned, custom-made acoustic; Becker on fretless banjo and treated piano; and Massarella on hand drum. It could have been a hidden track on Harry Smith’s Anthology and nobody would’ve been the wiser.

The band members’ ability to settle into a sound as though they’ve played it their entire lives—as well as the group’s penchant for diving head-first into any interesting tangent that crosses its path—is what defines Califone’s familiar, yet ever-evolving, sound.

“If we accomplish those things each time we do something,” says Massarella, “I think that’s a good thing. … I like stuff these days where it’s definitely technological—it’s sampled and it’s twisted a little bit and it’s been affected—but it’s used more like a band rather than being a secondary source or re-mix.”

Discussing what the Heron King ultimately represents, both Rutili and Massarella suggest there’s a political component to both the dream and its meaning—which certainly explains some of the creepiness. But as befits a band of musicians for whom time is, essentially, whatever period of music they’re tapping into at the moment, the political element is more general angst than anything else.

“What I do know is that politically, we all have that sort of perception,” Massarella says of his band mates. “It’s not necessarily fear, but we feel real cautious right now with what’s in the air. That’s in this record, too.”

Which is why the Heron King haunts dreamers’ dreams, turns the years to ash and sings a beautiful, timeless tune through those who hear it’s ancient, eternal cry.