Ive been driving through the darkness.through the smoke and fire on the ground. Lingering at the remains of a campfire before dawn, with the politics of the personal burnt into ash, running his stick through whats left, Wand singer/guitarist Cory Hanson is reflecting on a series of moments in which he steps farther into himself, finding the ultimate big sky country on the inside of his skull. Its a combination of songs and sounds that journey through bleak and broken territory and places of sweet, lush remove, and it adds up to the best record hes been involved in yet: his second solo album, Pale Horse Rider.Corys first solo, The Unborn Capitalist From Limbo, was an intense affair, a grand experiment that produced inspiring, unconventional music but this time around, he wanted to breathe a bit easier, to feel that breath in the music as well. So he and his band drove out to the desert to record in a low-stress environment: Brian Harris Cactopia, a house surrounded by 6ft tall sculptural psychotropic cacti. They built a studio inside and then they made music and lived off pots of coffee and chili and cases of Miller High Life as they played guitars, bass, keyboards and drums in what seemed increasingly like a living biomech, their tech made out of fungal networks and cacti needles. It was loose and flowed onto tape well. Recorded by Robbie Cody and Zac Hernandez (who assisted on Wands Laughing Matter), the sounds were great from the get-go. First takes were mostly best takes. Fueled with DNA lifted from country-rock cut with native psych and prog strands, Cory guided his craft toward the cosmic side of the highway, a benevolent alien in ambient fields hazy with heat and synths, early morning fog and space echo spreading the harmonies wide.Pale Horse Riders got a lot to get out of its mind, looking around and seeing that, on the surface, things dont always look like much. A lifelong Californian, Corys naturally found himself standing to the left of most of the country. The west may be only what you make it; these days, the roadside view looks exceptionally sunbleached and left behind. Pale Horse Rider eyes the city, the country and the fragile environment that holds them both in its hands a record as much about Los Angeles as it can be with its back to the town and the sun in its eyes; as much about nostalgia as new music can be with the apocalypse over the next riseOn Pale Horse Rider, Cory Hanson moves ceaselessly forward. The old myths weave and waft, the shadows of tombstones flickering in the mirages and the light that lies dead ahead.