Trippers & Askers - Acorn (2021)

Sometimes, very rarely actually, an album comes along that is a mind-altering experience; Trippers & Askers Acorn is so much more than just another album. Jay Hammond has put together a piece of work that gently challenges you on unimaginable levels. While he does it within the context of folk music, the vocabulary extends in so many directions you start to realize how audacious this piece of work really is.

Even the name of the “band” has a surprising background, “Trippers & Askers” is a (Walt) Whitman reference. Hammond recalls, “I remember memorizing the stanza in “Song of Myself” where the phrase comes up in the shower in Brooklyn sometime in 2008 or so. That’s been the band name since.” So, it should be no surprise that when he came upon Octavia Butler’s novel, “Parable of the Sower” it would have an effect on him. Written in the early 1990s, but set in the 2020s, it deals with a society that has collapsed for everyone but the super-wealthy. What hope exists is because of one woman who understands and embodies a radical ideal of a better world based on a new religion, Earthseed.

Amidst simple percussion, pedal steel, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, a sax and organelle shift the centre and send “Pulsing Place” in unexpected directions. The line is not so straight as first thought and this simple folk song rambles into territories closer to jazz and free-form. A similar effect occurs in the lyrics where what seems simple has more complexity than expected. “Here we are familiar in each other’s arms/ Catching all the flies and bees that might have harmed/ But all I want is flight and buzzing harmony.” There are mysteries at work here.

Sounding almost like a series of fragments connected by an acoustic guitar, “Henry” tells a tale of encountering an elderly homeless man. Despite wanting to understand this man, there are certain realities that come into play, “But what I think isn’t worth a dime at the shelter/ or on the street, there’s not a feeling that flows hard enough.” That’s tough to deal with, knowing you have no way of truly understanding this person. Despite all that, by song’s end, “You learned my name, said thanks, and walked away.” Yet it’s not all that satisfying.

Barely more than a phrase, “Keeping Watch” intrigues with its blend of guitar, bass and percussion. Equally intriguing is the simple, repeated lyric, “There’s no finding/ Where you’re hiding.” This is the dilemma spelt out and filtered through a changing musical landscape. Yet there’s a sense of release that emanates from “Interstate Walk.” A sense of positivity seems to reign with this guitar and percussion piece.

Incorporating saz, a seven-string Kurdish instrument, “Making Forests” dates back to a series of encounters with Bako Jaf back in 2017. With a shaky grasp of Italian being the only way to communicate, Hammond and Jaf spent days at the Tiber River playing and improvising. They form the core of this song about finding a new way of life, “Don’t look in places that you’re used to/ Turn up, stones in forests of your own making/ To find, that all your mossy thoughts they are made real.” The sounds, familiar, yet also alien, create rhythms that reflect the new beginning of this society.

Defying expectations, following paths that aren’t clearly marked, Jay Hammond’s Trippers & Askers collective has created something groundbreaking and completely unexpected. Acorn is not simply the tale of a new start, through this music it has become an unexpected pathway to new lines of thought and communication.