A Slow Messe

THIS IS FUCKING GREAT!!! This is a Montreal group with members of Godspeed You Black Emperor. It is an excellent collection of sad, dark, cathartic folk songs that use experimentation extremely effectively. Every other track is a short minimal sound texture. The full songs start folky with just guitar and voice, but orchestration gradually dominates with thick, gorgeous walls of feedback, harmonics, and horn anarchy. The cathartic folk tone is reminiscent of Neutral Milk Hotel, while the dark, haunting despair produced by experimentation is not far from the Black Heart Procession. Few bands merit those comparisons in my mind, so I hope this reflects how fucking good some of these songs are! I prefer Disc 2, it opens up more.

Disc 1: 8, 13, 11, 2
Disc 2: 5, 1, 7, 3, 9

DISC 1
1. beautiful sustained string harmonics. Haunting.
2. slow, strummed acoustic guitars, fiddle, voice. builds.
3. non-traditional violin bowing on top of sustained keys.
4. acoustic guitar, celtic sound. sliding violins, percussion.
5. haunting harmonics from bowed piano (?)
6. slow guitar on voice, prominent strings. not there for me.
7. street sounds, bird chirps, repeated banjo riff.
8. starts w/ acoustic, then great sustained horn cacophony!
9. sparse, sustained piano chords.
10. decent, sad folksong. acoustic, voice, violin, piano.
11. slow and drony, with echoey percussion.
12. sustained echo.
13. cathartic voice + guitar, listen loud. shimmering harmonics, piano.

DISC 2
1. distorted chaos of samples then great, mean midtempo groove.
2. ambience.
3. acoustic + guitar, then thickens with strings, piano.
4. percussion + ambience.
5. quiet guitar + voice, then thick horn frenzy. great!
6. dulcimer sounding instrument
7. voice + guitar over quiet feedback sounds. breaks out beautifully.
8. sustained tone.
9. sweet French vocal duet w/ guitar, strings, percuss. leonard cohen.
10. quiet, echoey synth sounds.
11. thick, sustained string harmonics. great!
12. organ and voice. sustained organ builds louder and noisier.
13. distant organ noodling.