Kane Pour - Cat on a Paisley Shawl (Housecraft CS)

Housecraft's a mainstay in this heart to be sure, but perhaps it's strongest attribute is its seeming inability to go the way of all things. When the original site went down I thought, well, there goes another one, but the resuscitation of the label on their blog site has left many hoping for more. Jeff was nice enough to shoot me a batch a while ago (you'll notice these latest ones are mostly from a ways back in the release schedules...) but I've gotta say, they're just as good as anything he's done. Guy's got a way of finding sounds that slip between spaces rather than fill them, and a hole's always better than a mound I say.

One of the best of these recent acts is Kane Pour who, along with Jeff, is the other half of Tricorn and Queue. His debut, Wand in the Beak of a Yellow Bird, was phenomenal, so getting this one in the mail was a joy. More or less expanding on the previous record's stuff, and certainly blessing us with an extra 12 minutes of material here, this stuff floats right in off some sunset shrouded cloud to settle right on the tip of an oak tree and nestle into its veins. Guitar based, the material's drenched with delay and off celestial backings that flit about haphazardly, everything soft enough so as to round out the edges until they are barely perceptible against the white wash of drift. Not drone, not tropy-jams, not nothin. Just fragile, lo-fi foraging. Balancing experimentation with listenability is no small task, but Kane Pour makes it look easy. It's the kind of thing your grandma might like to knit too. Throw it on and everything among it will immediately become softer, less agitated. Yet it ain't no new age numbery. Rather, it induces a kind of heightened sensitivity to vulnerabilities and beautiful details. Really lovely stuff that's always got a secret or two up it's sleeve to take it into another realm of disbelief. Immersion without conversion. Peace without fleece. Excitement without excrement. How'za bout that?