One of the only post rock albums and bands worthy of the dubious name. Though perhaps they're not that post rock at all, but again maybe they are.
Labradford were admittedly tailormade for worship from the likes of me. Dreamy, lovely songs, an obvious addiction to the likes of Spacemen 3 and Loop, etc. The type of thing nutty psych Anglophiles in Virginia go ahead and create without having to try, really. So I already liked them a heck of a lot going into this fourth album, and I was counting down the days until it finally did come out. And my heavens, was it ever worth it.
"S," the opening track, really does the business in and of itself -- the album theoretically could have ended after just this and my complaints would only be feeble. More than most bands, Labradford are masters of making the incredibly complex sound perfectly simple, almost organic, if you will -- a loaded term in the artificial world that is modern music, but it seems like songs like this don't get created over time so much as they emerge. Everything from the dubwise drums, which calls to mind what Tortoise might have eventually gotten around to doing if they weren't so dedicated at making all listeners die of excruciating boredom, to the weird high frequency pitches that first time through either make you think you're hearing things or that something is wrong with your stereo -- it fits together perfectly, the flange and delay of the guitar mixing with the loops with the organs with the string carrying the gentle melody and rhythm both. Real modern chamber music, you could call it, combining all sorts of things to create a whole rather than just simply relying on the basic playing of the instrument, whatever it happens to be.
The wonderful lushness of it all just continues from there on, and everything unfolds like a mysterious dream, where you can't quite pin anything down despite a general familiarity with the basic elements at work. Little taped conversational bits sneak in, children talking, people pondering, all the while the beautiful wash continues, a perfect restraint disguises a fullness rivaling any particular wall-of-sound production style you'd care to name.
Some weeks back I saw Labradford live, and they concluded with the end track here, "P." Soul-touching and affecting both ways, that song. They know what they are doing, and long may they continue doing so.