Uncut Magazine has included Balsams on their Best Albums of 2017 list. And the track “Riga Black” is on the CD that accompanies the January 2018 print issue.
23 CHUCK JOHNSON
Balsams VDSQ
A quieter year for New American Primitives, perhaps, with honourable mentions to House And Land, James Elkington, Bill Mackay and the Gunn-Truscinski Duo. But Oakland’s Chuck Johnson epitomised and transcended the adventurous spirit of the scene, Balsams being a solo pedal steel record with an ambient bent that made it as close to Daniel Lanois’ work on Eno’s Apollo Soundtracks as it did any notional folk tradition.