Resonating in the Great North West
03/01/2004

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Resonance , Seattle

http://www.resonancemag.com/

Tiny Hairs, Coldless
"Ambient-improvisational", "minimal", "folk-influenced" - this is the lexicon used to describe Chicago's Tiny Hairs collective on its one-sheet. Improvised though the sounds may be, and containing the occasional dramatic hush that prompts the listener's sudden awareness of his surroundings, this description pays little attention to the album's subtle sonic yarn-spinning. On "Name Changed to Persimmon", the violin's slight, intuitive backing off from the mic after sawing out some icy, trumpet-like tones makes way for elongated sheets of guitar harmonics and eurhythmic patters of percussion. The sextet, schooled in structuring, makes its improvised meta-music seem almost effortlessly composed, as in the algebraic grooves of "Stalk of an Eye", which recall portions of Tortoise's "Cliff Dweller Society". With a sonic palette that includes the mercurial collages of Brise-Glace and This Heat, and a hymnal culled from Cul de Sac's porch-sittin' post-rock, Tiny Hairs tell us fantastic stories that words could not even begin to do justice.

- Jason Olariu    

<<B A C K