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dustedmagazine.com: The Jewelled Antler Collective is an American West Coast-based group of improvisers, songsmiths, and general experimenters that have accumulated a deep back catalogue full of bright and brittle sounds that stretch themselves across a variety of complementary interests and influences. Not only are these guys one of the longer running ensembles that traffic in these realms, they're also one of the best. Thuja is arguably the flagship project of the collective, having been assembled a few years back from the smoldering debris of venerable (and yet still somewhat unheralded) space-rockers Mirza, and counting among its members some of the primary movers within Jewelled Antler β Steven R. Smith, Loren Chasse, Glenn Donaldson and Rob Reger. Pine Cone Temples is the group's first recording for Portland-based label Strange Attractors, with the quartet having released a trio of great discs on Emperor Jones and a debut on the always enjoyable Tumult label. Spread out over two discs, the eight pieces that make up the album unite the various strains of Jewelled Antlers' means of expression: the tunefulness of the Skygreen Leopards, the abstractions of the Franciscan Hobbies, and the thoughtful drone-based natural ambience of the Blithe Sons. Comparatively, Pine Cone Temples ditches some of the more overtly accessible elements of predecessor All Strange Beasts of the Past, instead placing the emphasis on wide open spaces and the familiar hum of rust covered drone th