Calla

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The word "illbient" has probably done more damage than good. Most of its celebrated purveyors have been put out of commission pulling contortionist moves to dissociate themselves from the term. If "illbient" can ever redeem itself and start with a fresh slate, however, it would be an ideal descriptive for Calla. Based in Brooklyn by coincidence rather than design, this trio of Texans projects a subtly psyche-sick ("ill?") sentimental ambience on its eponymous debut. Like (fellow ex-Brooklynites) 310, Calla's Sean Donovan, Wayne B. Magruder, and Aurelio Valle thread programming and sampling through spaghetti western instrumentation (guitars, keyboards, bass, drums, trumpet) to evoke the cracks and complications in the calm of its emotional-desert soundtracks. It's easy to see why the group likens itself to a "David Lynch Sound System." With its uneasiest currents often just subjacent to the surface of the music, Calla beautifully captures the secret subversions and warped normality that inform every frame of the cult director's filmography. A cinematic scene painted with whistling winds and the jingling spurs of ghost riders ("Tarantula") sets the album's eerie mood. Electric crackle and troubling murmurs infiltrate Calla's melodic conjurings - the neurotransmitted misfirings of a disturbed mind. Footfalls keep martial time as they retrace misty Moriccone memories on the splendid "Only Drowning Men." "Custom Car Crash," a Labradford-like postcard limned by reverb/twang-heavy guitar, ominous warpath drums, and Valle's softly sung/spoken insinuations, chars and blisters like an old photo thrown on a fire;" June," Truth About Robots," and "Keyes" float within a womb of percussive echoes and darkling thoughts. On the wistful "Trinidad," Donovan's rolling bassline and a lilting calypso melody lead Valle's sigh of "it's over now / always the same as before / until I see her again" down the haunted trail of a particularly bittersweet remembrance of love-lost. "Awake and Under," bristling with spindly fretwork and such crypto-poetics as "she walks on water / so tell her father / she's a miracle," closes the album with a tsunami of heartache, fading back to a protected hush in its final moments. Sigh. Something for the closet romantics who have already been swept away with Godspeed You Black Emperor! and are eager to board another emotional roller-coaster.