You know, not so long ago, even the likes of Mike Oldfield had to lump on a bird’s vocal to even stand a chance of pushing of vinyl onto the average attention-deficit teen, but with the likes of Four Tet, M83 and a shitload of others turning out instrumentals as prodigious, ‘tubular’ and downright peculiar as lark tongues in aspic, the trade has become almost credible. So credible, in fact, that even Paul Smith of Maximo Park is down as an admirer of the band. Not that we should be surprised, as the Winconsin-based Cougar make the kind of delightful aural misshapes that kept Lemon Jelly in sweets and crayoning books for years. Take ‘Pelourinho’: a languid, slightly anti-gravitational beat, a few surprising digressions and layer upon layer of rippling nylon guitars, and songs like ‘Endings’ sound like they were conceived by androids dreaming of electric sheep. And very lucid with it.
By and large it’s heavy and pleasantly overwrought affair teased by the occasional sonic tickle and quivering with the same quasi-classical afterglow as fusty lugs like King Crimson and cosmic adventurers like U.N.K.L.E.
Well investigating if you ever fail to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere on a Sunday morning.
Download:
”Absaroka’ – The clarity of the guitars, the sheer weightlessness of the mood and the inspiration of the woodwind and brass combo could only hasten the melting of ice-caps.