John Harrison has long been a shape-shifter in the underground, moving fluidly between space rock, kosmische folk, and exploratory alternative projects. He is also one-half of Tacoma Park, a project with fellow traveler Ben Felton, which released an excellent self-titled record in 2023.
With Gifted Ruins, Harrison unearths yet another hidden vein in his musical quarry: a warm, spectral collection that feels equal parts back-porch folk session and Appalachian dream ritual.
What began as a casual session with friend and producer Matt Southern quickly spiraled into a full-length, blending fresh compositions with retooled fragments from Harrison’s archives. That spirit of chance and rediscovery threads the record together. The studio itself becomes another instrument, shaping the sound with an almost talismanic presence.
Throughout the record, Harrison leans into organic tones (fingerpicked guitars, banjo, rustic piano) before letting them dissolve into Mellotron haze or percussive trance states. “Never Not Nothing” is a standout: a ghostly banjo hymn smothered in warbling loops, Harrison’s reverb-heavy vocals carrying like an Appalachian spirit call.
By contrast, “Architect of Puzzles” stomps with ritualistic boogie, a backwoods cousin to a Blind Owl Wilson jam, while “You Don’t Know My Mind” drifts in a dream-folk raga haze, equal parts sunset and smoke.
The title track is a minor revelation, a prog ballad carried by a battered piano and Harrison’s soulful voice, equal parts fragile and cosmic.
On the title track, Harrison also delivers one of his most affecting lyrical turns. “The prayer I have for you / is the prayer I have for me,” he intones, before undercutting the sentiment with a confession: “But I haven’t said a prayer since I was thirteen.” It’s a moment that captures both his vulnerability and his wry self-awareness, at once tender and unflinching.
Meanwhile, “Be the Moon” strips things down to glowing intimacy: banjo and guitar intertwining like a lullaby overheard from a neighboring porch. You can almost picture John singing this beneath a canopy of stars, the crackle of a campfire carrying his voice across a quiet North Carolina night.
The brief instrumental “Laugh Actual” sparkles with rustic banjo picking dusted in subtle electronics, an achingly beautiful piece that feels like waking in a mountain cabin just as the sun crests the horizon. Equally striking, “I Used to Wear My Summer Robe More Often” pairs its wry title with a more introspective acoustic mood.
If past Harrison projects gazed outward into the cosmos, Gifted Ruins turns inward, tracing the contours of memory, space, and place. Its instrumentals hum with a devotional energy, as if the ghosts of mountain ballads and backwoods drones are being refracted through a cracked prism. The result is both comfortingly homespun and uncannily dreamlike.
For reasons I can’t quite pin down, the record also kept conjuring for me those old Folgers coffee commercials: the best part of waking up. I know it sounds a little ridiculous, but I don’t mean it as a knock on the album at all.
It’s as if Harrison has hauntologically distilled the warm scents and sunlit scenes of those ads, then run them through a subtly psychedelic, hazy filter, turning nostalgia into something dreamlike and strange.
As such, Gifted Ruins plays like a rural psychedelic vision quest, one where folk traditions are honored, bent, and ultimately dissolved into shimmering abstractions. It’s a record to sit with, to get lost inside. Enjoy.
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