Labradford
E Luxo So
Kranky

There’s evidence of a new sound in the bag of Messrs. Nelson, Brown, Donne, but yet what is heard is mostly get more of the same Morriconica already perfected on last year’s "Mi Media Naranja." Track 1 makes fans still think that everything Labradford touches is indeed gold. It seems a perfect, full-band progression of Mark Nelson’s solo ultra-subdued dub project Panamerican. A wisp of a guitar lick, a mere thump of a sample, the occasional low end hit and a piano chord that rings out oh so nicely.

But then it all goes blandly, yet not horribly, wrong. Track 2 is the sort of fractured, spindly rhythm track that Tortoise got out of its system even before its self-titled album. Track 3 is a simple piano melody with, again, bland but not bad, strings arranged. The potential of track 1 (no titles given, thank you very much) is not revisited again until track 4. Hopefully the ever-tasteful Labradford is just easing their audience into a new phase exemplified by such pieces. Perhaps they thought a whole record like that would have just been too fast a change.

At any rate, it is really hard not to be at least slightly disappointed with this record. The disappointment is qualified because this is Labradford, dammit! Even the spaghetti Western they used to cook up so nicely before, is a bit stiff and underdone. Too much happens to really let one drift, and not enough changes for it to be as luscious and detailed as what they’ve done in the past in such music.

— Pearson Greer (el_syzygy@disinfo.net)