Maquiladora Wirikuta CD

Maquiladora's Wirikuta (Lotus House, 2010) takes the dreamy sound of What the Day Was Dreaming to austere heights. There are moments of simple naif eloquence: the gentle weightless litany These Treasured Gowns That I've Worn, the sleepy martial singalong Gut Check (Richard Manuel's Blues) (Neil Young in slow motion), the graceful lullaby We Are Not In This Together etc. The languor veers towards the mystical ecstasy of India with the humble hymn Anvartha-nakhadana, the languid organ-based 'om' of The Lighting Of The Night and the accordion-led meditation of Bottom Of The Still. These are elongated pieces in which the vocals drone more than sing, and owe more to Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra than to acid-rock or country-rock. And the emotional core of the album pushes the envelop further. The disjointed and dissonant instrumental counterpoint Beyond What You See hints at a form of chamber country-rock. Then Song 26 unleashes some tenderly impossible jamming while evoking the spectre of the most doleful Gram Parsons. The ten-minute (Don't) Eat The Past (Don't) Eat The Fear sounds like a ghostly requiem amid a whirling mist of musique concrete with a shy nostalgic piano line that writes poems on the blind noise of the universe; and suddenly the existential Gram Parsons has mutated into a metaphysical Robert Wyatt. The profound lament of D(obro) To F treads in a landscape full of crystal balls to attain it's quasi-anthem quality, and it feels like David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name redux. The rhythm is a sound effect and the singing borders on Gregorian chant in the nine-minute Hymn 66, and, after some hypnotic repetition, guitar noise hijacks the music towards pure cacophony. Maquiladora's drum-less madrigals constitute an endless exploration of otherworldly moods and places.

1. These Treasured Gowns That I've Worn 2. Gut Check (Richard Manuel's Blues #4) 3. Beyond What You See 4. Song 26 5. (Don't) Eat the Past (Don't) Eat the Fear 6. Anvartha-Nakhadana 7. The Lighting of the Night 8. D(Obro) to F 9. Bottom of the Still 10. We Are Not in This Together (William Kittredge's Blues #2) 11. Stay Shallow, Stay Toward the Light 12. Stephanie Come 13. Hymn 66 "Oh An Ogre, O! My Monkey"