Jurado has been with us for a while now – this is his 12th album – but there's no doubting his continual restless artistic spirit that once saw him as a solo alt-folk type troubadour, before he turned his attentions to the more expansive, exploratory, conceptual and psychedelic flavours of recent years. Visions Of Us On The Land also marks the third and final entry in Jurado’s Maraqopa trilogy, which began in 2012, and is the culmination of the loose story of someone – perhaps Jurado's alter-ego – who becomes a car-crash victim, then hooks up with a commune, before leaving to set across a fictionalised, and somewhat warped, landscape. The protagonist has many questions, and with a friend in tow, searches for answers throughout Visions… with the sun present as a constant symbol of life, energy and light. That he often comes up short in his mind is what makes this such a human record; a 21st century struggle for meaning and identity in an increasingly confusing world.

You do not need to know the first two albums of the trilogy (Maraqopa and Brothers & Sisters of the Eternal Son), for this stands alone as headphone music, if nothing else, liberally soaked in 1960s spaghetti western-psychedelic flavours, with a homespun, camp-fire recording feel. At times, a record that mixes up his old style folksiness (albeit nowadays drenched in effects and otherworldliness) with more upbeat, and band-orientated numbers as can be heard on the first three tracks here; the dramatic baroque opener 'November 20', the both galloping and trippy 'Mellow Blue Polka Dot', and the perhaps hackneyed psychedelic-lounge style of 'Qachina' (many of the song titles here are obscure or fictional names and places), a haunting semi-pop affair that recalls the lightness of touch that The Zombies imbued their music with circa 66/67. Indeed, the accompanying video has been made by the rather now common nouveau-retro Super 8, and depicts a 'fever dream' according to Jurado – along with the similarity of the vocal tones between Jurado and The Zombies' Colin Blunstone. With Richard Swift (whom he has worked with since 2010's Saint Bartlett, and who has been hugely instrumental in forging a new sound and direction for Jurado) at the production helm, both he and Jurado generally sprinkle the music with a seductive and haunting desert haze, aiding Jurado's impressively varied yet weathered and fragile voice, and his existential and questioning lyrics, strewn across this 17 track opus.

Throughout Visions… the production sound and multiple effects combine to create this overtly 60s psychedelic sound landscape, but with dreamy, warped, reverbed, echoing, sometimes haunting and errie overtones, including the use of distant voices, but interspersed with occasional bouts of up-front fuzzed-out guitar and rattlesnake percussion. For instance on 'Sam and Davy', Swift/Jurado overlay the back and forth two-chord strumming acoustic with muffled bass-drum blasts, synth washes and effects, the omnipresent mellotron, the song drifting to an inconclusive ending. "Me and my boy Sam in the tall tall grass, on our backs in the heat of the sun, on the warm October, with the clouds never good for rain, only changing shape" one of many highly visual lyrical sentiments that sum up much of the atmosphere of Visions…

But the shimmering haze does lift a little here and there, as Jurado reflects on his emotional journey, utilising his voice that at times conjures up the ghosts of Nick Drake, and John Martyn, both masters in singing in a deceptively lazy, laid-back fashion, as well as the aforementioned blunstone, and contemporary musical hipsters Matthew E. White and M. Ward. But like all these singers, Jurado's style is decisive and emotive even if his thoughts are at sometimes at a crossroads, and the actual words can be at times rather frustratingly indecipherable thanks to the heaps of reverb piled on most everywhere: "It was a fire, looking for a new direction, indecisive, undecided… I had been in the desert and spent time on a mountain, off of my feet, floating in suspension," as he sings on the shimmering two-part 'Onalaska', another track with a title that is so obscure as to perhaps either mean only something to those in that specific locality, or is otherwise made up. Similarly, songs such as 'Lon Bella' have that easy going acoustic swing as its basis, basking in the drifting desert-dusk vibes of the music, that nevertheless throws up interesting sounds and effects to keep your ears on their toes, so to speak, as does the unpredictable musical pathway of 'Taqoma'. Then there's the bluesy swamp of the voodooesque Walrus, a song that features some in-and-out-of-the-mix shronking sax, heavily echoed voices, funky bass, psychedelic guitar licks and the seemingly random image of a 'Walrus', as depicted on the cover art, carved on to a rocky mountain, sphinx-like. It's like the peyote has gotten a hold, but there are no obvious drug references at all on the album.

Jurado's penchant for acoustic, stripped back sparseness is still here though, such as on simple 'Prisms', featuring just a finger-picked rhythm and his invariably treated vocal, that speaks of memory: "As the light upon your window I can clearly see the dark, and it starts the conversations that go until the morn… Do we still go on, long after rewind?" Moreover, the vaguely menacing atmospherics of the beginning of the folksy 'On The Land Blues' gives way to what sounds like unusual certainty: "I know who I was then, I know who I am now." And the closing tracks, the Dylanesque flavours of both 'Queen Anne' and 'Orphans In The Key of E', along with the final track 'Kola', all display his original love of simple acoustic, but with melody to the fore, the vocal clearer than almost anywhere else on the album.

For those with attention disorders it may feel a little over done – it is a double album, vinyl fans – as you begin to wonder how many songs are required in searching for the keys to life. And yet, there is so much to saviour here, almost everything here standing on its own two feet in terms of creativity and imagination. The mixed emotions of self-doubt allied to his wandering spirit (but yearning to have someone by his side), in trying to find some kind of peace and harmony, and ultimately salvation, are deftly juxtaposed, as Jurado climaxes with the aforementioned 'Kola': "And I look back upon my time, see the snapshots of my life, you will not be surprised to see your name across my smile. And I will remember you, the way you are right now."

It's a triumph for this cult artist, a culmination of years spent honing his craft, and along with the big hand of Richard Swift, it's a minor classic. Inner questing, hints of religious imagery and beliefs, salvation, finding truth and harmony as bedevils this wandering spirit, and much musing on mortality. It's all here, but inter-mingled with moments of higher clarity, and much warmth. As he sings on the most epic track on Visions… 'Exit 353': "You were with me all along, I let go and you held strong."
Jeff Hemmings

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