Mystic Scally by boycalledcrow

Mystic Scally represents UK-based artist boycalledcrow’s third solo release. On it, a commanding sampling methodology is applied to his unreleased, folk demo tape from a time past.

Acoustic tones are chopped and reconstructed into warm, swelling loops of melody. Nonsensical vocal fragments erupt out of nothingness, detached from their speaker by years of solitude.

Through affected organic instrumentation, he shows us both the virtue of the natural and of the corrupted; he shows us moments of aching emotion and of synthetic beauty.

The album creates an atmosphere of general tranquillity but remains engaging throughout its runtime.

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"Carl M Knott’s follow-up and third solo outing is both strange and startling. A mystifying journey through an English sense of Folk which at times infuses the album with an organic, lived-in aspect that wants to reference musicians like Richard Thompson, but in reality is as far away from that traditional blend as is possible. Caustic sample cuts of acoustic guitar, voices and general otherworldliness denote Mystic Scally’s sincere disregard of convention. At times reflecting melancholy and loss of meaning Oh, The Guilt, or celebrating beauty by Chasing Rainbows, while at others vigorously messing with your mind on Ghost In My Head. Further adventures of braze, uncompromising landscapes of sound from this notable manipulator of imaginary tomorrow"

Magazine Sixty
https://www.magazinesixty.com/boycalledcrow-mystic-scally-wormhole-world/

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"Boycalledcrow seriously opened up the box, stepped out of it and let anything go out to live a steady but entirety feasible freedom on its own. At first we are lovingly embraced by a repetive exercise that even though it seemingly drops the word of evil, comes across as a warm welcome. From here a straight forward rhythmic road that’s pointing directly into the air like a star to follow , clearly and brightly there to guide
making way for (what feels like) a whole sweet arsenal of audio tape experiments.

Boycalledcrow has dropped the floating ambiance of melodic endeavors and replaced them by ever so kind sounding rhythmic sensations that are hypnotic and fluffy, trippy and not too busy, leaving enough space for a listener to relax and chill out where other experimentalism would go easily into a full packed over stimulation leaving one listener stressed or go for a risky adventure that invites a case of overdosing on information.

Boycalledcrow plays electro acoustic like undressed sweet sensations, sometimes adding his voice as the shape of an instrument, making all these things happen in a comfortable human form. You can hear boycalledcrow playing with technology and personal kind-hearted playfulness. It’s all coming from a good place, soft, crispy like a warm and flowery cup of tea and a biscuit to dip in. It’s the kind of material to hear on a listening session, but is also perfectly suitable as a backdrop for doing things (recreational or work) and even a good pall to bring with you to bed as a sleeping partner or spend some time meditating with.

In all cases this album by boycalledcrow (if it had arms, legs and perhaps a mouth) would be the ideal person you would trust to look after your kids, pets and plants. You can hear easily that the music and it’s creator have been on the good side of the kindness spectrum & are happily equipped to convey this message in music form. When it’s all done and over you will be gladly taking this sweetheart in again."

Yeah I Know It Sucks
https://yeahiknowitsucks.wordpress.com/2020/09/24/boycalledcrow-mystic-scally/

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"Umā rolls forward with fragile, juddery swells. Positive-sounding folkish chords and notes revolve on an endless conveyor. After a while, fragments of voice begin to bleed from the slushy tape manipulations. Though the melody grows over the course of the track, with harmonics easing their way in, the melody stays very much consistent throughout. Even from this short, innocent beginning, we can hear boycalledcrow entering into a dialogue. Sequencing skills conversing with the old format of tape, and a younger iteration beginning to parlé with its present counterpart.

Playful Spirit takes the tendril-like sounds of guitar sounds and brings them into a more dissonantly percussive sound. Playful Spirit owing its name to what seems to be its indecisive yet effervescent nature. Trilling high notes skip around a general white noise. From this noise comes a more commanding, lower note alongside stray snares caught up in the shroud of rewound sound. Though the instrumentation feels very freeform, we can hear the artist working hard to fit everything into a discernible rhythm. Rebuilding a beautiful sandcastle as waves continuously wash its foundations away.

A wonderfully organic guitar cuts through fizzling noise, pure melodic resonance meshed with the scratching of fingers on metal strings. A ghostly voice to push gently through the murk. Outsider uses fibrous notes to bolster it up to a more electronic sound, as gentle organic aspects leak out in time. boycalledcrow doesn’t seem to be afraid to push the boundaries of the source material as well, letting his voice ring out over a chirping guitar sounds as he diverts from the emotive section of the song. Already in the first three outings the artist has presented sound experiments that inspire in the listener feelings decidedly different than your average folk demo tape.

Walking The Dog pushes further into electronic pastures, a steady and explicit rhythm accented by what sound like canine barks. Slowly, over the horizon, comes a tinny loop catching suddenly on the rest of the instrumentation and letting out shimmering glitched repetitions. It is let loose again, its full revolution hitting that little bit harder this time before it fades leaving high pitched guitar notes to get caught up in swirls of sound. These two melodic aspects that present themselves as the most prominent themes of the track, and seem to snag on eachother. One catapulting steadily forward as another fades out.

I Got U showcases a fragment of a heartfelt chord progression on guitar, it fades in and out of the ether as a voice laments over the top. boycalledcrow chooses to reveal the past version of himself in snippets, like uncovering small sections of a photograph. The instrumentation and sequencing displayed is engaging in and of itself, and the past seeps through to the listener incrementally.

A particularly touching guitar sequence plays out on Oh, The Guilt left fairly untouched by the artist’s sampling methodology. We hear the aching creak of the guitar, the notes trickling out down with momentum as each first plucked string of a chord brings us over the top of a precipice. The sharp affectations layered over the top augment the chord progression perfectly. In this track, we can even hear steady breathing, meshing with the resonant sound of fingers against strings. Here the strange distorted hologram of the past comes through almost crystal clear. The beauty of the guitar phrases too radiant to warp or manipulate, save for a fleeting sense of hurriedness in some of the high-pitched notes.

Like Walking The Dog, She Is The Sun finds the artist creating a song that stands alone without the reference point of sampling to fall back on. A consistent percussive section takes on a gracefully rolling guitar part. The two knit together seamlessly as boycalledcrow builds around them. Euphoric guitar inflections peel off toward the horizon, the warm repetitive sequence staying comfortably by our side as we watch. The listener gets the impression from this track that the process of creating Mystic Scally would have been an undeniably emotional one. So much heavy context comes with revisiting work from the past. But through the artist’s confidence, we slide through with them adoring the scenery as we go.

The Woods plays out like a repeating from from a film. Earthy, low-slung guitar gives way to piercing resonant lamentations. Wonderfully organic string sounds loop and grow over time, the forest in the frame becoming a little more overgrown each repetition.

I Love Holding Your Hand waltzes into earshot, a lumbering shroud of sped up guitar and natural plucked strings. The artist fashions a percussive sound out of reversed dissonance, one of the first times the listener can explicitly hear reversed sampling being carried out. The instrumentation so far has been so meticulously designed that it has sounded natural. But hear boycalledcrow uses it explicitly to sustain momentum. The gushy title of the track juxtaposes adorably with its fairly timid and recurring nature.

Ghost In My Head brings a more melancholic sound to the fore. Corrupted notes swipe out of murky white noise. A fragile guitar note begins to dance atop the wreckage underneath, fluttering gently. The ballerina-like note trickles away, leaving us in the midst of dissonance again. Two divergent feelings become apparent, the underbelly of the track leans into a more sinister sound, where as the high pitched trills are more akin to a positive and quaint sound. As we stride toward the end and the sounds fade out, we hear (for the first time) a discernible phrase sung in full. ‘There is a ghost in my head’, ingenious in its inclusion, it gives more than a signalling to the premise of Mystic Scally. Almost as if the boycalledcrow of the modern day is back their, somehow present in the mind of the artist all those years ago.

Chasing Rainbows bursts forth with guitar notes ablaze with sunlight and positivity. Another instance in which the artist evidently dug up something too perfect to affect all that much. The instruments sway over each other with a shimmering resonance. Warbling samples carefully unfurl in the heat of summer. The loop feels like the gentle cooing of a repeating breeze.

We end with a layer of snarling bass setting a foundation on My Heart. Small impacts begin to make pinprick incision in it as boycalledcrow sets up a steady pace. All of a sudden, guitar is injected into the mix. Muffled in its execution and placed at the very centre of the sonic landscape, it allows the artist to then push in a echoing ghostly voice just behind it. An unexpectedly heavy-handed texture takes control of the concluding song. We hear screeching of instruments, the tiring inhalations and groans of voices as the ghosts of the past are put through the wringer one last time. It is a triumphant finale that finds the artist repurposing old sounds into a completely new context.

Some excursions on Mystic Scally see boycalledcrow fashioning completely new and inventive sonic journeys from old materials, others find the sounds of the past blended up completely as they play out devoid of form and function. The concept of the album is endearing on its merit alone, but boycalledcrow executes it in such a brilliantly diligent way. At no point does the artist let themselves fall into any sort of pattern, providing the listener with a pristine example of a rewarding dialogue between old and new."

listencorp
https://www.listencorp.co.uk/post/mystic-scally-boycalledcrow

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This world is expansive! A festivity constructed through ingenious reconstructions of organic material, blooming symphonic images coordinated under a harsh ray of experimentation. Mystic Sally plants the seeds for a new revolving order in boycalledcrow’s artistic vision. His past albums, Hyperlight and Emerald, felt like exploration’s into a futuristic epoch within the same electrical unit as ours, but his latest album is devoid of sustained gravity.

boycalledcrow somehow brings a youthful energy to the surreal environment, yet disciplined in a manner soothing to the ears and senses, but isn’t a freely improvised ride that sends us whirling in all directions, only in a refined one.

Marking his third solo album, Mystic Sally was released as a limited compact disc, through Wormhole World, August 28, 2020, though all copies are sold out, they’re available for listen and download on Bandcamp.

Umā begins with an adagio that swings into power. Acoustic guitar ascends, with verses strummed into repetition that later will spring us into being. Voices resonate from an affected pitch that assimilates with the archetypal texture characterizing the stringed patterns. Brightly churning towards a flowing field of ethereal hums, illustrating the mystic we encounter. PLAYFUL SPIRIT bounces in response to its predecessor, animating mandalic performances woven and vacillating immaterial energy. Bass kick strikes us into hypnoses, infiltrating the senses, while the continually dissipating matter acts as a concatenating layer – bonding electrical, peaceful themes. Until OUTSIDER takes our hand and leads into more experimental valley’s. Acoustic articulation demands we enter outside, our original nature. Breathy vocals sing the slogan: “He go out in there,” which sounds audibly chopped and essentially alien to the senses in exciting ways. Feedback sleeves the acoustic portion, sending vibration fluttering to higher channels. Which, these couple of segments repeat, until the bombastic WALKING THE DOG claps into irresistible bass-beats. Tintinnabulation of electric software spirals in regurgitated waves, with sampled double-note vocals. The electric jingle exits, while looped acoustic is added, with sensations galloping through cottony tones of fresh sunlight.

I GOT U is precisely what the title portrays; I love the continual choppy effects added to boycalledcrow’s fluidity on the guitar, while somnolence is chi to auditory activity, ranging from mezzo-piano to standard volumes. The vocals never progress, which I don’t believe you can call them such, but float in soft patterns, indecipherable and inarticulate, yet, even more, a perfect addition to the album’s surreal, trippy nature. OH, THE GUILT blooms under guitars approaching with, now, an ear to standardized treatments: exempt from choppiness. Comparable to SHE IS THE SUN, which frolics in a field of repetition, uniform to the album’s original nature, but coursing into different anatomy. As in THE WOODS, the stringed patterns are crisp and playful; letting sounds swim, unobstructed.

Until we arrive at GHOST IN MY HEAD and return to the original framework, racing into affinity the complexion of a transformed being, standing at the threshold of dark and light, flangers, effected in reverse, captivate the listener to CHASING RAINBOWS. Ending the storm of noxious elements that disrupted our heads in the last adventure, the eleventh song harmonizes the resulting sprays of evanescent beauty, augmented experimentally, melding to understand experiences within, and of, the spirit. MY HEART is a dance and fire, a burning ember of transformation sparked from the percussive beats. Sounds seize this jewel, lying in a bath of excitement, ready for the next journey—ambient fixtures ornament among dampened lo-fi prowess echoing among choric distortion. Timbres rise within the fiery blaze, devoting the sweet electrical fruits of wisdom to run through the veins of Mystic Scally."

A N T I : MUSIC REVIEW
https://xactionmusic.wordpress.com/2020/12/18/mystic-sally-by-boycalledcrow/

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Released on Wormhole World, where the album is available on CD.

https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/mystic-scally
https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/mystic-scally
https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/mystic-scally

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boycalledcrow is the alias of Chester-based sound artist Carl M Knott (Wonderful Beasts, Spacelab). Knott, a former folk musician, uses his myriad acoustic influences to create unique, strange and beautiful compositions.

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