Chris Forsyth is a member of Peeesseye and this is his second solo album on his own Evolving Ear label. The center point of this album is Forsyth’s acoustic guitar work, laying down some minimalist psychedelic riffs, but being accompanied by his Peeesseye band mates, Nate Wooley and overdubs by Shawn Edward Hansen. Opening track “Soft History” has all the mysticism of a Terry Riley track with enough distractions in radio static and synthesizer to make it even stronger. When the tempo slows and the trumpet of Wooley comes in, it’s down right ecstatic in its beauty.

“String Haters” starts with some frantic finger picking (similar to some of the more frantic Daniel Higgs releases) and lays more and more guitar work to top it off. It never lets up for a second, gathering electric and acoustic into some rumbling storm of psychedelica without resting on the well-worn aesthetics of that genre. It becomes a full freak out sound while still maintaining a semblance of musicality (but by just a thread) and the tension that arises in the playing is insanely sustainable. “Long Warm Afternoon” provides a breather after that and is a very nice kind of Sunday morning song filled with ringing guitars and some distant percussion.

Closer “Dream Number One” features some spoken bits by Fritz Welch, repetitious and sparse, like he’s leaving words out of a sentence. Crashes of percussion jump in and out while a couple of organs drone marking the spine of the song. Out of the clang comes some loose form and interplay between the guitars and percussion. It’s narcotic and lodges itself squarely in your consciousness. All the open spaces don’t invite distractions, but instead force you to focus on the palate that is being painted. Sounds dip in (a musical saw? The high rattle of a saxophone? Where did the vocals go?) but I became transfixed. Fucking killer on every level. 9/10 -- Andrew Murdock Livingston (18 November, 2009)