Stamen & Pistils

Towns

[Echelon Productions]

In Stores: Now, you can order a copy here

Stamen & Pistils’ Towns nods to classic American folk as it passes through that genre with a blowtorch, singeing the edges with strokes of  innovative noise. The result is something that seems almost familiar, like a neighbor of déjà vu.  To do the stereotypical music review shorthand of referencing combinations of similar artists, Towns is like a cross-country bus trip taken with Animal Collective and M. Ward.  The tour guide through this charred Rockwellian countryside is vocalist Raul Zahir de Leon, whose smooth, honest tones confide in the listener as the scenery sways around you.

The stop in Towns closest to the corner of Neil Young Boulevard is “Quiet Country”, where the main vocals remain relatively unobstructed and are bolstered by guest vocalist Carol Bui. It is a track that invites group sing-alongs and foot tapping, especially when done in an abandoned church. “Possessive Nouns” flirts with synthetic elements but they dance around the vocals rather than masking them, an shadow rather than an outline. Distorted spoken word samples open “At Home Among the Tangles” and they peel back to reveal a winding road of layered composition and reconsidered thoughts.

The Stamen & Pistils lineup is rounded out by Miguel Lacsamana, John A. Marsters and Christopher Licciardi. The D.C. based group manages to walk the tightrope between seemingly conflicting genres without a hint of a misstep. Towns acknowledges roots of the musical and cultural sort while creating its own atmospheric future.

For more on Stamen & Pistils, including song samples and announcements, check out their Myspace page.