“Underground music is filled with all kinds of characters, personalities, and peculiarities. Rare are the
musical/artistic soul mates who have forged life, as well as creative, partnerships. Foundationally, the
work of couples like Alice and John Coltrane or La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela set standards of
artists who share a complete aesthetic worldview, in which the pair complement and lift each other to
higher vistas, the newly created work completely collaborative and unable to be untangled from its divine
union. More recently, soul mate musicians like Wayne Rogers and Kate Village, or Rick Brown and Sue
Garner, continue in this seemingly impossible tradition, a lifetime of musical co-expression. Jen Powers
and Matthew Rolin, as the Powers/Rolin Duo, are the latest, fully realized musical version of this unique
dynamic. On their new album Strange Fortune, for the Astral Spirits sister label Astral Editions, the pair
offers a sage-scented, instrumental love poem, which straddles the lines of psychedelic and folk idioms.
Over the course of four extended tracks, including the sidelong “Amaranth,
” showers of 12-string acoustic
guitar and hammered dulcimer mix to dizzying heights as the two players weave in and out of each
other’s melodies, finishing each other’s musical sentences. The sounds of the instruments commingle,
yielding a cosmic sense of compatibility as if there is little distinction between the players. Over the past
few years, the Powers/Rolin duo has spread its developments over a string of limited LP releases and
hard to find cassettes. Strange Fortune, which was recorded live with few overdubs, feels like their first
signature statement as a duo: it’s a deep listen, a bliss-inducing ramble through acoustic tonalities. So
open up the windows, turn the volume up, and let the Powers/Rolin duo be the soundtrack to your
summer and all the kaleidoscopic days ahead.
“
