Queen City Sounds/Birdy Magazine - The Down Valley Album Review
“Only Johnathan Maske can know about the creative paths he's taken to crafting the songs that make up this album. But the musician and songwriter has been in bands like Two Strikes, Rebel Steele, and The Get Together and these songs are miles different from any of that. It sounds like he went on a sabbatical from his regular job and sequestered himself in a remote locale with only a crate of records including the 1968 The Soft Machine album, choice sides from T Rex, The flying Burrito Brothers, Fairport Convention, Dylan, Leo Kottke and some of the better modern indie psychedelic music. There is a deeply contemplative tenor to Maske's words and the production on the music lends it a reflectively existential quality that can come off as nostalgic navel gazing. But really it's the sound of someone trying to make sense of how complicated life can be, keenly aware that if we don't take many moments away from the myriad of demands on our attention and psyche to sort through things and re-attune ourselves to what really matters now, then we can get lost in the flood of distractions offered and pushed upon us daily. Maske may not even have been alive in the 70s, but this album seems informed by the more ambitious popular music of that decade.” - By Tom Murphy
