Windy and Carl - The Drawing of Sound

The Nineties were indelibly marked by a sweeping reappraisal of sixties and seventies psychedelia. Suffice it to mention Porcupine Tree as the tip of the iceberg, as well as the band that reaped the greatest success from it. But this "revisionist" movement has far deeper roots, and above all performers as underground as they are seminal.

Windy & Carl fit into that category, but only in part. Calling them a psychedelic duo, in fact, would be reductive and rather misleading given the complexity of their musical vision.

Hailing from Michigan, Windy Weber and Carl Hultgren, riding the success of neo-psychedelic bands like Spaceman 3 and Flying Saucer Attack, decided to launch a new project charting still-uncharted sonic routes. In 1990, Carl Hultgren struck out on his own, forming a group with a fairly well-defined philosophy, and it was only in 1993 that Windy joined him, initially given a decidedly secondary role. Up until their departure in 1995, the pair were joined by percussionist Brenda Markovich and guitarist Randall Nieman, who would later go on to devote himself to the newly formed Fuxa.

So what were the influences behind their sound? First of all, it has to be said that the sonic carpets laid down by the duo carry a strong psychedelic streak, one that would later fade in favor of a denser sound built on drones and effects-laden guitars. Just as important is the lineage tied to 4AD's brand of dream-pop – think of the majestic Cocteau Twins – along with the most stretched-out, placid strain of shoegaze and 1970s German electronics.

The project got underway in 1993, when the pair released Portal, their debut cassette put out by homemade label Blueflea and later reissued on 12" vinyl in 1995.

Across its 80 minutes, Portal shows how lysergic sounds from uncharted territories can be paired with only hinted-at dream-pop delicacy. What permeates the record from start to finish is a markedly dreamy quality combined with extensive use of guitars and e-bows.

The seven minutes of the opening track are exemplary in defining the aesthetic of early Windy & Carl: guitars drenched in effects, hazy sonic cascades fusing an approach poised between dream and sacredness. It's worth noting how pagan undertones recur throughout the album, traces that clearly evoke an imagery tied to ritual music – in the vein of Charalambides – unfolding in a kind of non-time.

What could be hastily dismissed as an immature debut, overly tied to well-trodden paths, instead proves remarkably cohesive and capable of standing on its own two feet, even while embracing clear reference points, as in tracks like "Glowing" and "Through The Portal": the former is a peak of epic stillness, unfolding quietly over a handful of guitar arpeggios, propped up in the background by a wall of feedback; the latter offers an imaginative finale painting distant, regularly lapping waves.

While there are already episodes pointing toward the duo's future sound – think of the fifth track's deflagrations or the analog chase of "Approach/Descend" – Portal remains essentially an album rooted as much in the most lysergic, sacred psychedelia as in the most cosmic dream-pop. The result is thoroughly convincing: a good hour of music built on a sound both dense and ethereal, engaging without ever wearing thin. Music, however, that had yet to reach its zenith.

Exactly one year after the release of Portal on the Ba-Da-Bing! label, the duo unveiled what would likely be remembered as one of the masterpieces of the Nineties. Drawing Of Sound is what we might call "a total album."

Breaking decisively away from the compositions of their debut, while still developing some of its tendencies – above all those tied to experimentation – Windy & Carl deliver about forty minutes in which sonic expansiveness reaches stellar heights. With the psychedelic component toned down in favor of far more solid drones and, in places, a significant vocal contribution, the sound veers toward more pop, more accessible shores.

Drawing Of Sound is an interstellar journey through the folds of the universe, a single, slow-moving, measured molten mass. The opening "You," with its repeated guitar arpeggio that seems to chase the great fingerpicking masters, carves out angelic holograms floating in mid-air. The majesty of "You" is as dazzling in its simplicity as it is gentle in its vaguely dream-pop unfolding. The second track, "Lighthouse," ventures into 4AD territory: just under nine minutes in which the duo brings into focus, as well as anyone ever could, a misty atmosphere with no fixed boundaries. The guitar paints sinuous arcs, the drum cymbals are brushed ever so lightly to create a faint beat, and the notes dissolve into a finale of pure immersion into the cosmos amid distant echoes.

A true slow-motion rock work, Drawing Of Sound shows how baroque sonic openings can be married to avant-garde minimalism. Exemplary are the drones and effects-laden guitars that shape the vaguely shoegaze structure of "Venice." As the lapping of waves caresses the wood and the lagoon takes on warm yet vivid hues, smoothed-out reverbs graft themselves onto a grainy background hum. The following "Awhile," running over ten minutes, is surely one of the high points of the duo's entire career: a repeated drone that merges and blurs with Windy's enchanted vocals, painting a majestic impressionist masterpiece. The epic ending of "Whisper" still manages to move the listener with its slow harmonic flow dissolving into a non-dimension.

The greatest strength of Drawing Of Sound is its ability to catapult the listener into an otherworldly dimension, one whose coordinates seem blurred and veiled by the thinnest layer of mist. Entranced by the sound, you feel almost immersed in amniotic fluid. Never has drowning felt so sweet.

Their creative streak seems inexhaustible, and a year later the duo releases its third work, Antarctica, for new label Darla.

Following in the footsteps of their previous work and moving definitively away from their debut, the Michigan duo hones in, across three tracks and roughly forty minutes of music, on the essence of kosmische musik updated for the Nineties. Once again challenging the listener and offering a sound that differs yet again from their previous work, Windy & Carl sketch out very different landscapes, their essence mirrored even in the titles given to the respective tracks. Pushing effects-laden guitars and keyboards into the background, the duo theorizes a granular sound redolent of earth and air. It's no coincidence that, among all the duo's records, this is the one in which the ambient side comes through most strongly.

The title track is an immense expanse of drones, over which guitars unfold teetering on the edge of the void. A sonic odyssey of over twenty-two minutes, "Antarctica" proceeds unchanged for ten very long minutes, before varying its course with layers of effects that show how, even in a dark sea, nuances can give rise to color. If the first track sketched a description of life underwater, "Traveling" reveals the record's more cinematic side: in a kind of ascent, we begin to breathe again, lungs recovering oxygen, returning to life. The drones rise up ever so lightly (with thanks owed to Eluvium) for a total immersion into earthly life.

While retaining the cold tones of the opening track, "Traveling", true to its title, identifies itself as the bridge between the cold sea of "Antartica" and the resurrection of "Sunrise". The final track, a genuine ambient-drone gem lent to sunlit warmth, unfolds amid enchanting guitars that rise up like shields in an imperceptible, quiet motion. Once again, the duo doesn't miss a beat. Ever-changing yet ever true to themselves, Hultgren and Weber open up new paths for ambient music.

Kranky, at the time a young independent label devoted to ambient and experimental music, takes notice of the duo's extraordinary abilities and signs them to its roster. Everything seems to move quickly, and yet only three years have passed since the official release of Portal.

Thus, in 1998, Depths arrives, their fourth record in just three years. What amazes once again is their ability to constantly turn the page. Turning their attention toward a more constructed, perhaps less empathetic sound, Hultgren opts for distortions applied to a magmatic forward motion. The notes of opener "Sirens" are bubbles of oxygen resurfacing from the earth, moving at an extremely slow yet constant pace. An enveloping, sinister guitar arpeggio, repeated in a dark key, forms the backbone of "Undercurrent". The thousands of sonic filaments that build "Set Adrift", a sketch of morning light, fade quietly into a lone guitar. The twenty minutes of the title track are a total immersion in a sea of creaks and granular textures, in an evolutionary process of sound that resets itself and chases its own tail.

Updating the ideas of Drawing Of Sound, the fourth track highlights the duo's more markedly ambient side, building a track of epic proportions precisely because of its lack of dynamism. It even crosses paths with pop: "The Silent Ocean" unfolds between Windy's hushed vocals and the extremely slow unfolding of a guitar. And while listening to "Aquatica" - one of the (many) peaks reached by the duo throughout their career - one might say there's no better title for a composition of this kind, the closing track winds through placid guitar interplay, barely-there vocals, and a bucolic atmosphere that opens into a spine-tingling finale.

By the end of Depths's seventy minutes, the feeling is that Windy & Carl still haven't put a foot wrong.

After years of intense labor, a well-deserved rest comes in the three years following 1998 - three years spent gathering ideas and starting afresh with renewed drive. From 1998 onward, however, a shift in direction becomes evident: no longer intense release activity, but records that come out much more sparingly.

In 2001 the duo returns to the scene with Consciousness. Made up of six tracks for a total running time of three quarters of an hour, this fifth work digs into the most hidden, cerebral dimension of their music.

Theorizing a sound decidedly more aligned with new age dictates than with rock, Consciousness ideally immerses the listener in a mantric void where movement is slowed and vision is clear. It's a long journey, from the springtime brightness of opener "The Sun" to the descent into the tar-black nothingness of "Balance (Trembling)". The first track, close to the most heavenly Charalambides, flaunts dense, dark layers of notes. But the climb back up doesn't take long: the ten minutes of "Elevation", its guitars carving out celestial auroras, raise a wall of sound as sweet as it is majestic, standing tall for ten minutes before withering away. Windy's vocals accompany the unfolding of "The Llama's Dream", which brings to mind shoegaze warmth. The title track stands as the most rock-oriented episode in the duo's entire output: guitars soaring thunderously in a crystalline sky, veiled by soft clouds.

Following a game of steady, regular waves such as "Consciousness", we find the closing "Resolution": an ideal point of contact between space and popular music, the final track delivers five minutes of flights of fancy, a continuous sonic rising and falling that fades until it vanishes in an imperceptible motion.

Consciousness will probably be remembered as the least successful episode in Hultgren and Weber's career, though it remains a good work that suffers by comparison with the greatness of their previous records.

After the 2001 record, two EPs deserve mention, both again released by Kranky. The first, The Dream House, made up of four extended tracks averaging around twenty minutes each, sails over already well-trodden territory, which nonetheless showcases a compositional vein leaning toward heavenly sounds. In 2006, meanwhile, Akimatsuri was released, recorded between March and October of that year to mark Brainwaves' tenth anniversary, and put out in a limited edition of 500 copies.

A full seven years after Consciousness, the duo finally returns with a new full-length album, Songs For The Broken Hearted.

The six minutes of the opening "Btwn You + Me" manage to surprise even the band's most devoted followers: abandoning their usual trademarks, Windy & Carl sketch out an ethereal, dreamlike sound with a marked dark streak. The whispered vocals, awash in drones and keyboards, paint pictures of dazzling beauty, not far removed from the frescoes of Lycia.

In the repeated arpeggios scattered across the twelve minutes of "La Douleur", chords of pure poetry are struck through a continuous, vertical climax that rises like waves driven by a fierce wind, before folding back and crashing on the shoreline. And while irony and faint ambient-tinged distortions surface in the decadent flow of "Forever", "My Love" - a track that sings of fate and hope - picks back up the dark mood hinted at earlier. "Rhodes" - surely one of the most singular pieces in the entire output of the Michigan duo - sidelines the sunnier side of their sound to give rise to a complex structure of repeating notes that unfold in a circular, cinematic motion: ten minutes in which effects-laden guitars keep folding back on themselves before gently fading away at the close.

Although "Champion" is probably the first track where the vocal element takes centre stage, with a subdued melody painting muffled sounds around it, the ten-plus minutes of "Where We Were" (a title that says it all) bring to mind the majestic sonic expanses of "Drawing Of Sound": chiselled sounds, juxtaposed and interlocking with one another in a perfect fit. The glockenspiels, which truly drive the track's beat, make their first appearance in the wintry landscapes of "Snow Covers Everything", while "Intelude" serves as a prelude to the closing track, "The Same Moon and Stars", which conjures an atmosphere of fierce tenderness. Gently layered guitars build a luminous ambient symphony, over which barely-hinted reverbs stand out, multiplying exponentially. A true melodic gem, this track recalls the finest moments of Eluvium.

When the sunlight fades, Windy & Carl know how to offer comfort even in the deepest darkness. Evolution within continuity: that's the motto of the Kranky household and of the Michigan duo.

Given the attention to sound craft shown by the new deal that began in 2001, one might guess it will take a few more years before another full-length effort arrives. In the meantime, all that's left is to surrender to the fascinations of a band that has, by now, made drone-music history.

It's 2012, and the pair returns to the scene. We Will Always Be is perhaps a predictable record, almost the "usual" album of ethereal drones, yet crafted with a class and elegance that leave you stunned. Paradoxically, it's an album of maturity. Not so much artistic maturity - they had reached that practically from the start - but rather the kind of wisdom that only the great elders acquire after years of experience. That's roughly how the album sounds, immersed in a cosmic peace where there's no room for conflicting emotions.

A pale sun, mild and benevolent in appearance, dominates the valleys on a quiet morning, with frost still on the grass. A May morning, one of the first warm ones, in a vignette whose acoustic atmospheres come quite close to the masterpiece "The Weather Clock" by July Skies. Listen to "Remember", "Spires" or "The Frost In Winter" to rediscover those feelings, that something which speaks of lightness and open wings. And while the enchanting "Looking Glass" plays on the suspended space-rock moods of their nineties-era work, "Nature Of Memory" and "The Smell Of Old Books", though not memorable, offer the perfect link to the closing "Fainting In The Presence Of The Lord", nearly twenty minutes of pure immersion in brighter, more vibrant drones.

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