dustdevil & crow while speaking softly you can hear the insects sing (Bandcamp)

While speaking softly you can hear the insects sing is the sophomore album by dustdevil & crow, however, in the meantime having got a solid addition regarding the line-up subsequently consisting of Michael Duane (guitars, basses), Bendle (voice, inept guitar, junk percussion, jaw harp, organ, low tech digital mischief), Aboombong (drums, percussion, treatments drones), Delphine Sayre (voice), Rob Tarana (violin), and Nick Toombs (guitar, field recording) at the moment. Indeed, all of those artists and their roles are very worth to be emphasized out. Here are represented 11 tracks, making out an idiosyncratic mix of post-rock, avant-garde, chamber rock/folk, dark-hued folk, psychedelia, and more concretely, having obvious influences from the 60`s British psych-folk, drone folk, some decades later appeared concept-based vanguard guitar workouts, and fuzz-filled or other feedback-based experimentations. Regarding the recent case, indeed, it is quite hard to draw difference between the kind of post-folk and post-rock. Yet, it would not have made up any difference at all if the basic ground were rubbish. Moreover, the sextet has even their own "pop song" (Breathing In). In a nutshell, it is a wide-opening yet subtle killer giving no chance for a listener to be realized out with some listening times.

Listen to it here

9.5

The Dog Pòstumo (Transienda)

The 9-track album of the Spanish band The Dog does start out with an ancient advertisement clip against the marijuana smoking, which soon delves into scuffed guitar riffs and electronic mix-based turmoil. As a whole one it seems in its very beginning to pretend for a kind of soundscape searching for its source between silence-infused images and furious yet controlled guitar ascents. A bit later it is used to get evolved into melancholy-pitched post-rock reflexions accompanied with subtle classical/baroque/chamber music elements, and soon, on the other side irreversibly setting itself up for dream folk-esque status unwinded via fingerpicked guitars, airy vocal arrangements and its whispering modifications, violins, glockenspiel thrums and harmonica-alike ingoings. Sometimes it sounds quite close to A Silver Mt Zion (especially No sè què cenar), at the another time it is used to sound like a sort of wistful Penguin Cafe Orchestra. In a nutshell, I shall have to admit that Pòstumo is full of outstanding examples which can be classified as "post-folk", as it was precisely described by Rajsank from the Yamanotedreams blog, indeed.

Listen to it here

9.2