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"Salt Lick" b​/​w "Tables of Grass Fields"

by Ash & Herb

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited edition of 250! Classic jukebox-style large-center 45 cut to black vinyl, mastered and lacquer cut by Carl Saff. Held in Risograph-printed foldover sleeve with front cover art by Ash and back cover art by Herb. The complimentary digital download also includes 10-minute bonus track "Root Seller".

    Includes unlimited streaming of "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 250 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $6 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Get both Flower Room 7" vinyl releases at once in this bundle deal! Includes the Ash & Herb "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" jukebox style single (black vinyl, large-hole 45, Risograph-printed foldover sleeve, limited to 250) and Ash Brooks - Temple of the Roses standard edition EP (black vinyl, 33 rpm, pro-printed foldover card sleeve, limited to 200 copies). Includes digital download of both releases.

    Includes unlimited streaming of "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $3 USD  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 98 Flower Room releases available on Bandcamp and save 85%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Lilac of the Valley, On Garudan Wing, Flight Path, ML rootless, Crop Circle, Searching, Flowering, On the Crystal Seas, and 90 more. , and , .

    Excludes subscriber-only releases.

    Purchasable with gift card

      $54.53 USD or more (85% OFF)

     

  • Collector's Edition: Art Edition Salt Lick 7" Vinyl + Cassingle + In Now Time Vol.2 10" Embossed-Lathe bonus disc + Cassette + two 1" buttons
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited to 10! All the new Ash & Herb releases and merch in one package. Includes the ultra-limited 10" embossed lathe record edition of "In Now Time Vol.2" (only 25 made!) as well as the limited edition cassette version, both the Art Edition 7" black vinyl (with hand-painted cover by Ash) and cassingle versions of the "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" single, and 1" pinback buttons of both albums' cover art.

    Includes unlimited streaming of "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Art Edition 7" Vinyl with hand-painted cover, "In Now Time Vol.2" bonus cassette, and two 1" buttons
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited to 50! Classic jukebox-style large-center 45 cut to black vinyl, mastered and lacquer cut by Carl Saff. Held in Risograph-printed foldover sleeve individually hand-painted by Ash. Also includes the Ash & Herb "In Now Time Vol.2" bonus cassette and 1" pinback buttons with representations of both albums' cover art.

    Includes unlimited streaming of "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Limited Edition Cassingle, with bonus track & 1" button
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Limited to 50! Hand-stamped home-dubbed red foil c20 (music grade, Type I) held in clear polybox with tipped-on full-color cover art variation (exclusive to the cassette edition). Exclusive 10-minute bonus track "Root Seller" on the B-side. Includes 1" pinback button of the cover art.

    Includes unlimited streaming of "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

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about

"Notch another win for the constant creep of Cosmic Americana and East Coast freak psych, Ash & Herb are back and things are woollier than ever. After a solid offering from MV & EE house label Child of Microtones, the duo have a new 7″ on the way from Maine label Flower Room and the A-side’ll knock you sideways. The band is gearing up for album #2, titled Dome Cookbook (channeling Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic vibes, eh) but before they go that route the band is kicking out a double shot single. “Salt Lick” ropes in a previously unfelt funk to the mix, pinning a chooglin’ beat to spacey keys and reverbed marinated vocals for a track that’s keeping pace with their circle of contempos in Wet Tuna, MV & EE, and Mountain Movers, while also feeling like a force all their own. The band’s debut owed a lot to the shrouded school of forest folk, but it's clear with the release of “Salt Lick” that they have no intention of blending into the bushes by the time that second LP rolls around. This is a stacked high bonfire party track that’s begging to be blasted to the top canopy of any camp out. Too bad its January, but keep this on file for the coming spring thaw." - Andy French, Raven Sings the Blues
........................

In the nearly two years since Ash & Herb emerged with their first shot from the abstract psych-folk / rural-glam underground (the Northern Lights LP -then a limited CD on MV & EE's Child of Microtones label), they've hit the road to ply their craft from Portland East to Milwaukee Psych Fest and back, digging the space with such likeminded heavies as Wet Tuna, Mountain Movers, Doug Tuttle, and Dire Wolves. With performances that slowly build from incantation and abstraction to loose, polyrhythmic East-meets-West ecstatic free-jams before deconstructing back to the source, the duo has since returned to their home in rural Maine to translate the experience of those live expressions into their forthcoming followup LP "Dome Cookbook" (due early 2020).

Their first release of new material since 2017 is the "Salt Lick" b/w "Tables of Grass Fields" single, also Flower Room's debut 45 offering. "Salt Lick" alone winds through various modes before the needle lifts at the A-side's end; beginning with a RZA-indebted reversed tack piano sample and breakbeat, the subsequent interlocking guitar and organ riffs and the duo's signature "group vocal" overdub style lead a bass-grooving, double-drumming boogie through verses inspired by the Norse creation myth of Audhumla, before giving way to a major key space-funk outro. The flip-side cover of the underground classic 1968 tune by The Bachs recasts the original as a hazy psych-pop daydream conversation between the physical and astral planes, with Ash's violin and tuned bells and Herb's melody-first bass guitar playing lovingly painting a subtly different shade on the original's canvas. The 10-minute live collage "Root Seller" is included as a digital/cassingle bonus track, providing a raw document of the freeform sound environment the duo has created onstage and in-home over the past two years.

credits

released February 22, 2019

Ash Brooks: Rheem Mark VII organ, voice, synth, violin, tuned bells
Matt LaJoie: guitars, voice, bass guitar, percussion, autoharp, tack piano, loops

"Salt Lick" and "Root Seller" composed by Ash Brooks & Matt LaJoie, "Tables of Grass Fields" composed by Blake Allison & John Peterman (Gear Fab Publishing, ASCAP)

Produced and mixed by Matt LaJoie at Green Lodge & 4847 (Maine, USA). Mastered and lacquer cut by Carl Saff.
Front cover illustration by Ash Brooks; back cover illustration by Matt LaJoie.

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Flower Room Portland, Maine

Exploration & discoveries in improvisation & harmonization ☄ Tonal cosmology, virtual rurality, and hymns to the cosmos and the natural world, to heal and inspire a more harmonious You-We-All ☤ Welcome

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