Gerycz Powers Rolin

Longtime favorites Jen Powers and Matthew Rolin have been winding their way through the American underground over the past decade, a duo that consistently capture the magic of musical exploration. The pair are also consummate collaborators (see: Joseph Allred, Cole Pulice) and they link up with their perennial foil, Jayson Gerycz once again on their latest album for 12xU. The trio explores moments of tension and transcendence. Opener, “Entrance” finds Powers and Gerycz letting rhythm dance in nervous waves — coiled and spring-wound one moment and lashing at the listener the next. But as the record wears on the clouds aren’t always as threatening. Bliss and buoyancy find Jen’s dulcimer sparkling against Matt’s strings, a feeling of hypnotic lightness tied around them in gossamer tendrils.

As a duo Powers and Rolin seem so in synch, knitting clouds out of sound, but with Jayson’s addition the trio adds an element of entropy that grabs hold of the listener by the synapses and pulls them in two directions at once. Again, the trio work like dancers fighting the choreographical urge of symbiosis and instead threading separate paths simultaneously. The record stipples the soul of the listener with a thousand tiny indentations. With Lamplighter the band established their rapport, but here they push beyond those boundaries, creating an album of shadow and shine, an ember that fuels the collective fire.