Farmer Dave and the Wizards of the West – FDWOW

Ten years after Farmer Dave’s surf opus Flash Forward to the Good Times, he’s back with Wizards of the West, a collective and constantly-evolving collections of musicians focused on a singular goal of spreading love via music. Where Flash Forward represented water, the eponymous debut of this project is all air and space.

That isn’t to say Farmer Dave hasn’t been plenty busy in between, collaborating with Cass McCombs, Jenny Lewis, Kurt Vile, among others; releasing music as half of mysto-folk duo Californiosos; and of course his work with Beachwood Sparks and the Skiffle Players. He also released an EP, Speak of Love, as himself on Spiritual Pajamas late in 2020 that was a great pre-cursor to this release.

The album blends funk and groove, spiritual jazz, jungle, jam, and psychedelia. “Cave Walls” blends seamlessly into “Right Vibration,” echoing L.A., Hell Yeah, L.A., On Our Way, Hey, Hey. I love it when Farmer Dave sings the names of cities around California… a nod to a few tracks off of Flash Forward to the Good Times. “L.A., East Bay anywhere you look up and see the constellation!”

The standout track from Speak of Love, “Ocean Eyes” is present on FDWOW as well, this one a bit more discordant and spontaneous. I love both versions. This one is more off the cuff, candid and raw. “Stand and Deliver” skates along jovially, and “Bohannon” is a funky, jazzy, danceable number, and in the end, we return to FD’s surfer roots with a hallucinatory interpretation of “Wipeout.”

Farmer Dave’s music is all about complexities, and this record is no less multi-faceted than his other works. It is, however, is more primitive, feral and tropical – it’s a darker, primordial vibe – less rehearsed and more raw. Once I asked Ben Knight, the other omnipresent member of Wizards, what it takes to be a Wizard of the West. He said that what makes the band special is Farmer Dave’s encouragement to let others experiment – his name is on it and he may be the figurehead, but he’d never stand in the way of the muse coming through.

If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll get to experience Farmer Dave’s meditations on fire and earth one day, although hopefully we won’t have to wait until 2030 and 40 – in fact, word on the street is that there’s a new iteration of Wizards and the West who already have an album’s worth of songs they’ll soon be making their way north to record.

Get FDWOW on Curation Records in the US and Big Potato Records abroad! Out 1/22.