Owatonna Orchestra

Devin Frank hails from the Midwestern United States, Champaign-Urbana, IL, a town known for its University where the Netscape browser was developed and sound-artist Maryanne Amacher did graduate work in acoustics and computer science. That’s all I know. And for some reason I visited this town a few times briefly.

“Evening’s Fantasia” is a cassette tape filled with instrumentals by a collective of musicians around Devin Frank, of whom I know nothing. What caught my ears was the lofi vibe of early Woods jams (the good old Woods…) and the fingerstyle guitar pieces in between and then there was this big, fat analog synth creeping into Lightner Fire. Awesome!

Psychedelic folk, mixed with some american primitivism. The desert rock jam titled “By Moskvitch or Fiat” raises the question what Frank knows about the Russian car “Москвич” – a shitty car that I only know from my childhood in East-Germany. Fiat is another crappy car, as far as I can tell.

I would love to get high to this tape. Just sayin’.

There are three releases available on Devin Frank’s bandcamp page and they are all very enjoyable, but this one is the best.

Buy, download or just stream it. The choice is yours.

Highly recommended!