Nightcap at Wits' End

New Jersey-based avant-jam band Garcia Peoples were a little slow to take shape, but after the release of their excitable 2018 album Cosmic Cash, they switched into overdrive. Constant live performances, residencies, concert documents, and prolifically recorded studio albums tracked a creative development that morphed from record to record. The group took cues from the open-ended improvisation of classic jam band acts like Phish and the Grateful Dead, but also incorporated dual-guitar wizardry on par with Television or, in their more Southern-fried moments, the Allmann Brothers. For their 2019 album One Step Behind, the band expanded to a six-piece lineup and added avant-jazz touches to the equation as they stretched out over the course of a half-hour-long title track. With Nightcap at Wits End, Garcia Peoples shift gears yet again, with a set of neatly composed and relatively concise tunes that distill their wandering impulses into easily digestible forms. This can take the form of rowdy prog-lite tunes like album opener Gliding Through or the shadowy but mystical folk-rock of Altered Place. In this more composed rock mode, the band recalls the shadowy mystique of early Bay Area psychedelic giants like Jefferson Airplane as much as they do obscure acts like Anonymous and Relatively Clean Rivers. After a lively start, the album shifts into mellower territory with the drifty Fire of the Now. Painting a Vision That Carries is made up of delicate vocal harmonies and a dynamic structure that goes from controlled acoustic segments to blasting verses and back. As this song burns on into a vamping jam, the bands Dead-like tendencies come to the surface with noodling guitar leads and dazzling group interplay. The second half of Nightcap at Wits End becomes a string of woozy and meandering pieces that blur into one another in clouds of hazy jamming. Themes resurface as the band shuffles through meditative riffing on Crown of Thought, Krautrock-y interludes, and the blissfully droning Popol Vuh-esque A Reckoning. Garcia Peoples excellent psychedelia manages to recall moments from past masters while still offering a chemistry and composition unique to the band. Nightcap at Wits End is the most complete articulation of their wide-reaching creative range, and stands as the their most focused and engaging work to date. ~ Fred Thomas