Preludes-New York EP

Preludes, like one of my current favorites, Dirty Beaches, makes fundamentally cinematic music. The band's crisp, eternally wistful dreampop wouldn't have been out of place on the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack: like most of the songs featured there, it conjures up a distinct, discrete feeling without overstaying its welcome. The songs on the "New York" EP barely exceed 3:35 at most, but each one is a separate movement of what feels like one, fragmented whole. The pairing of deep-as-the-Mariana Trench percussion and synthesizers confused the hell out of me upon first listening, but it grows on you with time.

"Relationships" is built around an insistent violin line. As it slowly develops into a string-and-vocals arrangement, the vocals intone indecipherable mumblings in a hushed, Bon Iver-style tone. Around 1:28, it slows down until the vocals are almost alone, resulting in a minimal, yet somehow lush, bridge.  "Relationships" ends with a bang, as stringwork whirls around a thunderous drumbeat.

"Obligations" takes the percussion of "Relationships" and runs with it: too subdued to dance to, the song's handclaps, tender bass note and a thunderous beat are perversely rhythmic in a very sedate way: I could dance to this after smoking hash, but not while drunk. "Black Spring/Unhappy People" starts off like it's gonna be a club banger, with a menacing bass beat that I keep expecting to explode into techno (or whatever people listen to on Ibiza). That bass never really goes anywhere, and the result is a song that manages the difficult trick of being both monotonous and mesmerizing, if that makes any sense.

"Ariel" felt like a dream, of running down an empty city street on a gray, autumnal day, chasing your lover just after s/he walked out, finally, for the last(?) time. Opening with angelic wailing and chimes, that fucking bassdrum kicks in again to lead you out the door. It's a long walk through the barren New York streets, but maybe s/he will listen; it has an iminent, breathless feeling that it shares with some Eluvium tracks. Eluvium's albums unfold on a vast panorama, but Preludes' songs are as compressed as the streets of Florence. It works.

Preludes' second EP, The Swan, was great, but "New York" has a much fuller sound; I can't wait to hear what they do next, and this is great music for late fall and early winter. LISTEN HERE!!!!

Preludes-The Swan EP

Drifting by light as a feather and drowsy as a Klonopin bar, Brookyln's Preludes sounds like a dream ya don't wanna wake up from on this, their second release.

I've always been of the opinion that dreampop always hovers between masturbatory, self-indulgent pap and holding the listener in a sustained, blissful moment in a way that 4'4 time rock can't. Upon my third listen, I'll say, tentatively, that Preludes manages to fall on the latter side. The songs on "The Swan" are all of a piece, and that piece is something like walking around Seattle, stoned out of yr mind, on a sunny day; people glide by, there's gently moving water everywhere, and the world is melting into a pleasantly nebulous mass of good feelings.

"The Swan" sets the mood with barely-murmured vocals and muted, hushed percussion that's barely audible on first listen. "Sleepy Eye'd" wakes up from the dream a bit, with a sustained synth figure framing the singer, who sounds a lot like Beach House's Victoria LeGrand or Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval on this one. The heart of the EP, however, is "In Central Park," the most dynamic of the tracks. Lilting along in slumberland, buoyed by what sounds like violin samples and handclaps, the vocalist narrates, uh, walking in Central Park. This one's going on the mixtape for the next girl I fall in like with.

Listen to the EP here. Also check out the "Dresden" single, which came out in March. Dream on, dreamerz!