The Alps - III

Eschewing the “freak out” might seem handcuffing to the average psychedelic musician, but this San Francisco trio finds cosmic debris in the details of sound. Despite the title this is the debut from Tarentel’s Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Alexis Georgopoulos (who also records as ARP) and Scott Hewicker of Troll. The dreaded soundtrack tag that dogs instrumental music is fairly applicable here, and may be due to Georgopoulos and Hewicker’s backgrounds in visual art. Light, it’s refractions and the visual confusion caused, runs through all the pieces here. The opener, “A Manhã Na Praia,” shoots prismatic sunlight through the many-angled repetitions of acoustic and electric guitar and twinkling xylophone. “Trem Fantasma,” titled after a 70s Brazilian film or the Os Mutantes track it inspired, starts with a spooling reverb that recalls film clicking into projector gate then unspools into a darkened funk rhythm that slowly crawls through spectral keening and meandering piano and guitar. If the pictures in your head feature salt wrecked seaports, moss-choked cottages or crumbing reliquaries then The Alps can provide your theme songs.

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