Chad E. Williams - The Vision Fields (Love Earth Music)

Sacramento, CA is known more for its political failures than its music. Regardless, Chad E. Williams, multi-instrumentalist and member of both Instagon and Garage Jazz Architects (which also includes Instagon mastermind, Lob) hails from my home state’s capitol city, where he’s recorded by himself since 1991.

The Vision Fields compiles music Williams recorded on his 4-track over the past 20 years, in some ways creating a sequel to his impossible-to-find cassette-only release from 1995, Cerebral Music Vol. One. As such, the music spans multiple genres, from the opening, dreamy Vangelis-style opening, to the somber, psychedelic street jazz of “Vampires Don’t Dance to Bleed Thru” featuring Mike Hammer on saxophone, to the spoken-word passages of “I’m Kind of Afraid” and “The Terrible Repast” – the former an exercise of schizophrenic paranoia re relationships, the latter an El Topo/western-like short story featuring the voices of Kathleen E. LeMer and Frank Andrick respectively. In between there are ethereal guitar-jazz meanderings, creepy tape collages and the incessant sound of rain, sometimes all at the same time, creating an unsettling soundscape that hints at the faded memories of bad dreams, i.e., while the sounds can be beautiful, there’s a constant underlying sinister element creating an uncomfortable vibe, like the feeling of someone being in the room when no one’s there.

At times, The Vision Fields reminds me of the recent psychedelic jazz albums of David Winogrond; at others, it’s a portal into the psyche of one man using music to convey his emotions – a work of mystery recalling faint memories that are at the tip of the tongue but lost to another thought.