“Mood Indigo” sounds like a classic folk rock song circa 1976. Is it, or isn’t it? It shares a name with a jazz standard by Duke Ellington and Barney Bigard, but no, it’s as original as the rest of this mellow, bluish work. Water Words is the debut album by Oakland artist Asha Wells, who recently returned to San Francisco after traveling around Central and South America. The travels inspired them to “experiment with open guitar tunings and atmospheric textures,” which manifest in the 11 soothing, meditative pieces here. The album exists within a single tempo and tone—let’s call it “drifting”—but like any watery surface, this allows the artist to reflect and refract the infinity complexity of the world that surrounds them. A welcome place of rest. Now available on cassette and CD via Royal Oakie Records.
