SONOI - Sonoi

Born as a spin-off project of Manishewitz and Curious Digit, Chicago's Sonoi formed in 2007 thanks to Adam Busch and Ryan Hembrey, later adding Pierce Doerr's skilled drumming.

The original duo's psychedelic erudition deepens under the guise of Sonoi, on the eponymous album of distinctive stylistic craft. The versatility with which they explore the dogmas of classic rock has taken on an almost scientific rigor. Steeped in revisionist passion, the record lays out a sprawling spectrum that runs from the chaotic cadences of acid-rock to cosmic rushes, from meditative stillness to supersonic riffs. From the evocative imitations of Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross" (Fleetwood Mac) — with the tense buzz of electronic blips — on "Red Ants", to the jungle of unruly sounds (almost out of phase, as if spinning on two distinct dimensional orbits) on "Rotativa", Sonoi speak in a sacrilegious grammar of quotations and inventions.

The 11 minutes of "Anchor Tattoo" pay true homage to the great poems for spoken voice and free-form accompaniment, from "Lorca" to "The End". The equatorial tom-tom rhythm is the only constant, as the singer's ramblings intone Eastern psalms and Native American odes, while the magic carpet slows to a crawl through reverb, refractions, overlapping acoustics and ghostly raga chords.

"Cat & The Barbie" nails a perfect Kinks-esque vignette, but taken to a higher stage of sonic interplay, while "Clouds" deconstructs cosmic rides by sharpening Watts's war drums and Neu's guitar strafing. Of them all, "Sherry Fall" sounds genuinely melodic thanks to a spontaneous pairing of depraved Stones-style vocals with relentless jingle-jangle.

The trio's feeling couldn't be more magical, capable of birthing solemn ballads like "Eva Baton" (syncopated tempo, random electronic events, floating guitar delay) that then sharpen into haughty pagan callbacks, and the repeated, ad libitum roll of "Angeline", built on a John Cale-style drone, galactic wah wah and languid sax. Right through to the total inertia of "Framed", a dissonant ambient piece that could soundtrack one of Wyatt's masterpieces, and the mysterious pulse of "Friends In Dry Places", made of strings, African percussion, shrieks and horns — the album never exhausts its vocabulary.

Even though the vocals take relatively a back seat to the myriad colors and harmonic tones, the band falls in line — with admirable cohesion — additions and implementations of the lysergic canon. As if discovering the world for a second time: a mix of feigned naivety and meticulous observation, filtered through a selective sense of pleasure. The result of merging the first two EPs ("Sonoi 1" and "Sonoi 2", both from 2009, the pop side and the experimental side), and produced by none other than Michael Krassner, who contributed instruments and additional personnel (Nate Lepine, Nick Broste, Blues Oblique), and is chiefly responsible for the record's appeal, this is one of the high points of 2010 rock.

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29/04/2010