Articles
Jefrey Leighton Brown
Label: Community Library
Vaz: Days of Yore

Albums
A Sunny Day in Glasgow
Badun
Jefrey Leighton Brown
The Buoys
Christmas Decorations
Cinematic Orchestra
Colour Kane
David Daniell
Electricwest
Formication
Philip Glass
Erdem Helvacioglu
Jasper TX
Khan
Jasper Leyland
Lichens
A A Mexicano
Milieu
Oid
oto
Ola Podrida
Andrew Pekler
Person
Pole
Project Perfect
Reanimator
Rubens
Stephen Scott
Silencio
Strategy
Tare / Brekkan
Tarwater
Terminal Sound System
Unit 21
Valet
Yellow6

Compilations / Mixes
Cielo
Deep Sea Shipping
Luke Fair
Flight 18
DJ Food and DK
DJ Kentaro
Modeone
Steve Porter

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
B33P3R
Cheju
Deerhunter
Foxhole
K_Chico
The Magic Lantern
Jon McMillion
Myers Briggs
Niederflur
Person
Questions in Dialect
Samarkande/Obliv. Ens.
Sonje
Soporus
VeeBeeO
Vestigial
Rick Wade
.xtrak

Tarwater: Spider Smile
Morr Music

Some artists metamorphosize with each release—one never knows what new skin the next album from Pole, Andrew Pekler, or Björk will reveal, for example—whereas others habitually spin variations on a recurring theme. Tarwater (Bernd Jestram and Ronald Lippok) seems to more contentedly reside in the latter camp, with Spider Smile only subtly different from the 2005 Morr debut The Needle is Traveling. Like others lining its discography, the new album offers a well-crafted mix of instrumentals and vocal songs, with the group's deadpan vocal signature audible throughout, though welcome colour is provided by occasional counterpoint.

With its grandiose electronic themes and ponderous guitar melodies, the instrumental opener “Shirley Temple” harks back to Silur. Inspired by a joint bus trip through Scotland with members of Sun Ra's Arkestra, “Arkestra” weds slide guitar to a bucolic chant, while glockenspiel adds a glistening veneer to the rollicking romp “When Love Was the Law in Los Angeles .” The group does try to mix things up by expanding its range of analogue instrumentation. Agitated rhythms in “ Witch Park ” are dragged into a bluesy, swamp-water zone by the pluck of a kalimba and the wheeze of a harmonica, “A Marriage in Belmont ” perpetuates that bluesy feel but adds the exotic percussive touch of a talking drum, and an oboe melody adds a classy touch to the melancholy interlude “Roderick Usher.” To its credit, the duo rouses itself from its usual placidity for the comparatively aggressive “Easy Sermon,” as well as add gothic gloom with an echo-chamber-laden cover of the Virgin Prunes' “Sweet Home Under White Clouds.”

May 2007