Vinylization of the splendid 2021 cassette, issued by Garden Portal. The music was recorded partially out west in San Francisco and Point Reyes (hence the title), as well as in Alexander's current locale of Philadelphia.

An instrumental addition to Alexander's canon, the music was mostly generated on guitar, but other sonic elements include -- bass, pebbles, fake mellotron, waves, moog, shells, fife, magnetic tape, and talking book phonograph. The results are a sweet, rural stroll through the kind of mind gardens the various off-shoots of the Youngbloods explored back in the Raccoon Records era, when they were based in Point Reyes as well.

Reyes's other main counter-culture avatar was Philip K. Dick who lived there for a few years in the late '50s and early '60s. But Jeffrey's music displays none of the red hot paranoia that flashed through PKD's work of that time. If anything, the mood is paranoia's antidote -- a rolling, casual float through cheeb-scented air with lots going on around the edges, but none of it in the least bit threatening.

Given the loud sluice of Alexander's recent work with the Heavy Lidders, Reyes feels laid back and reflective, but there;'s nothing wrong with that. Indeed, there's everything right with it. In times like this, when the cultural shit storm show no sign of abating, we can all use a record that allows us to lay back and center ourselves.

Reyes is just that kind of record, and man is it ever perfectly timed for just such a moment as this.

Byron Coley, 2023