Digital release of the latest masterpiece from Soul-Junk, 1961. Album downloads from Bandcamp and iTunes also include a beautiful digital booklet lovingly created by brilliant artist and faithful SF friend, Jonathan Dueck.

If 1960 was a return to detuned stegosaurus rock form (after about 10 years of jeepbleeps and noise and smaller-crew productions), 1961 is a return to core-band archaeopteryx rock form. Indeed, it’s harder to get more constant than your own family, and this is family-band brand Soul-Junk through and through. Jon is back (bass), brother Brian is now in the mix (guitar/keys), and drumming son Jude and singing/percussing daughter Mila (at the tender ages of twelve and five respectively) form the core. With two-fifths of the band’s ages not even adding to 18, there’s a nice concentrated swoop at tapping into the clanking naive carbonation of some of Soul-Junk’s early 90s hit records like 1950 and 1951.Glen Galaxy has been singing words from the Bible for almost 18 years, but 1961‘s lyrics are exclusively from the ancient words of pilgrimage, struggle, comfort, hope and joy commonly known as the “Songs of Ascent”. Guitars, bass, and drums all wrapped in backbeat thump and skunk send up beguiling, stone-skipping themes.

There is, in classic Soul-Junk style, an epic arch to the entire record, but of particular note is the movement from psalms 125 through 127, where it moves from something Glen might have written as a ’90s lazy-shaker Trumans Water number…to some dollar-store Lee Hazelwood…to a pummeling USAisamonster-ish jam about good sleep.That the “Songs of Ascent” have served as the comforting accompaniment to Glen’s wife’s eventual triumph over cancer is especially poignant. Cathleen, Glen’s bride of nineteen years, is now healthy and whole. His family’s sojourn through the valley of the shadow of death has been its own song of ascent; ascent into deeper confidence in just how completely they are cared for. 1961 is a ultimately a document of wonder and raw “those-who-dream” celebration.

Track List

• 120 – Soujouk of Lebanon
• 121 – Ascension
• 122 – Archaeopteryx
• 123 – Malta Or Ever
• 124 – Swallowed Us Alive
• 125 – Salabanana
• 126 – Those Who Dream
• 127 – Arrows
• 128 – Soupmog
• 129 – Grass Grows On The Rooftops
• 130 – Uranusunaru
• 131 – Song Of The Weaned Child
• 132 – A Unicycle Makes It OK
• 133 – Oil Beard
• 134 – You From Zion
• 135 – Sanddunes Before Sundown

  Credits:
  Glen – Guitar, Voice, Melotron, Bouzuki-Gamelan
  Jude – Drums
  Jon – Bass
  Brian – Guitar, Keys
  Milan – Voice, Percussion
  Kate Hatmaker – violin on 125
  Produced by Brent Asbury (also played drums on 132) Recorded at Singing Serpent San Diego 127 and 128 mixed by Rafter Roberts
  Mastered By Rafter and Jim Garry
  Art by Jonathan with collages by Glen
  Photos by Cathleen James Navarro Master-Prep