Sarah Louise is an extremely accomplished folk musician, recognized as a prodigious finger style acoustic guitarist and known for her delicate work with electronics and tape loops that recalls Pan American as much as Fahey. A lot of her work is very traditional but I find her entire discography to be incredibly innovate, very spiritual, and deeply psychedelic. This album from 2021 takes all of these traits to a new level and produced her most psychedelic and emotionally charged work yet.

The personnel is the first clue that something’s different. It’s all blog favorites from the legendary Cooper Crain (Bitchin Baja’s) to Go Kurasawa (Kikagaku Moyo) to Sarah’s Ashville neighbor Thom Nguyên. Though the record is still mostly Sarah’s layered guitar and electronics there’s a new band-like feel. She also plays more electric guitar and the vocals are more prominent compared to much of her other work. It’s still a far cry from a pure psych rock record though.  Other prog folk might come to mind at points but Earth Bow is its own organism that I’d sooner compare in vibes to spiritual improvisational music like Laraaji or Alice Coltrane.