Corsican Paintbrush - Fascinators (Housecraft CS)

When he's not heading the Digitalis and Foxglove labels, or playing in Ajilvsja with Nathan Young or the North Sea by his lonesome, Brad Rose is making music with wife Eden as Corsican Paintbrush, a space synth folk project that generally mucks around in clearer waters than some of Brad's other projects.

This new cassette on Housecraft presents three tracks spread over its two sides. The first side, one epic 19-minute zoner called "My Trinidad Ecstasy Rocket," starts off in some pretty glum locales, burbling along with some electronic babble and strange synth rumblings. Pretty zonked out and nicely paced, the whole thing stretches into itself, evoking some of the same vibes that I get from Demons, only with more organic, less electronic vibe. When pipes come in, chugging along to some odd reverberated pulse, it almost descends into a Vodka Soap vibe, albeit one that replaces the rhythmic structures of the latter's work for a more sprawling, early Cluster feel. Voices pop in and out, careening around as sounds present and re-present themselves. It's pretty go nowhere, only with enough of a sense of structure to maintain its interest throughout, pulling out when it needs to return to the basic drone structures it started on and then enriching itself once more with more delayed skitters and a kind of gently ominous patience that displays great depth here.

The second side starts off with "Sunrise Year," which basically starts where the first side left off. More crinkling atmospherics and spooky, ethereal beauty. Some real night time jungle qualities here, although way more cavernous without any of the obvious connotations that that may have. Just gurgling, what the hell was that sound situations. Not unlike some way stripped-down Fag Tapes release, really. The final track, "We're Wringing Trouble," replaces the low-end murmur with some high end vocal work that sprawls itself out and wavers about with some beautifully synthesized cirrus layers. A nice way to end on a high note, clearing the old noggin and laying down the veer off into infinity approach. Lovely.

It's another killer via both the Rose crew and the Housecraft label. Fits right in with the cold-as-ice, cozy melancholy of this time of year, at least up here. Here's hoping this tandem does it again, as both the sounds and the label fit each other wonderfully.