Depths

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W & C are probably the ultimate expression of shoegazing - I mean, check out the titles on Depths: Sirens, Undercurrent, Set Adrift, The Silent Ocean, Aquatica etc - and I love 'em for it. A bit of history: hailing from Michigan, they are bassist and singer Winder Weber and guitarist/keyboardist Carl Hultgren. To date they have released two albums - Protal and Drawing of Sound - and a bunch of singles. Their music had revealed them as squarely in the space-rock camp of the post-rock world (it's telling that last year they played shows in Europe with the reformed Silver Apples), with long pieces consisting of swathes of droning guitar, synth and vocals washing across hanging bass figures. Welllll... Depths hardly breaks new ground for them, but it's easily their best work to date, and bear the hallmarks of the two years it's taken them to write, record and re-record it. The Oceanic theme is wrung out to the full; they've gone beyond drone-rock to a sound world of full-on minimalism, the flip side side to Sub-Pop's Earth's more violent guitarscapes. Dense, rich, and immensely seductive. I've been sucked in.