#12-string

The main touchpoints I hear in Balloon Balloon Balloon are pre-psychedelic, mop-top Beatles, with their upbeat guitar sounds, sophisticated passing chords, and catchy vocal melodies. Shadowing this bright side is the prolific lo-fi songcraft of Tobin Sprout–era Guided By Voices, where the fidelity of the recording see-saws wildly to keep the listener on their toes. At one end of the spectrum there’s the magnificently tuneful opener “Popafangout,” which crams a ridiculous number of hooks into its three-minute runtime, with new changes even arriving during the song’s fade-out. At the other end of the spectrum are the noisy, experimental “Balloon” interludes, and the astonishingly muddy drum sounds on songs such as “(I Wanna) Be Your Girl.”

Among the album’s 21 tracks are plenty of songs that immediately stand out for their personality and charm. Aside from its startlingly GBV-esque title, “Queen of Globes and Mirrors” could well have come straight off Bee Thousand, with its melancholy-yet-hopeful vocal refrains and guitars that sound like sitars. “Talking in Your Sleep” is a pristine slice of mop-topped jangle-pop, with big Ringo vibes on the drums. The droning, lysergic malevolence and serpentine, whistling feedback of “Stop to Say Hello” brings to mind The Brian Jonestown Massacre. And “All the Shop and Stores Are Closing Now” distills all the wistful whimsy of The Kinks into a pristine 70-second miniature.

Slater has found a way of collating a raft of familiar guitar tropes and injecting them with fresh energy. He seems to have ideas simply pouring out of him, plus enough of a quality-control filter to stack up an album’s worth of songs that fizz with inspiration.

In “Alice Moki Jayne,” Moore pays tribute to three artists important to his own thinking: jazz musician Alice Coltrane, visual artist Moki Cherry, and poet and activist Jayne Cortez. The song doesn't draw directly on the works of these artists; it takes a spiritual sort of direction from them (as the album title might imply). Moore's composition stretches out for over an hour. He takes his time here, a few ringing notes and a bit of sustain turning into a contemplative practice. The entire set takes patience, not only to listen to but also to perform. The musicians play with no hurry. To do so would be to miss the import of the track. As the band moves between meditation and anxiety, a struggle emerges. There's no cheap way, no simple resolution into basic chord.  

Sonic Youth fans might catch some energy in the middle of this track. For a stretch, the band moves from its avant-garde into its indie-rock mode, a shift perfectly apt for Moore (and his previous album Rock n Roll Consciousness likewise blended the two adjacent fields). The moment's relatively brief, given the track's duration. The piece moves onto bits that chime and bits that buzz, noisy squelches in conversation with peaceful tones and 1990s riffing.  

The disc's shortest track at just half an hour, “8 Spring Street” references Glenn Branca, though the composer's influences can be seen across Spirit Counsel. In fact, this track, despite the nod to Branca's address, feels less like a descendent of his work and more like a reminder for us of Moore's roots. It's a solo number, though it feels at times as if Moore has an accompanist. He gets a full ringing tone while sorting his way through a melody above his own not-quite-a-drone backing sound. If it doesn't sound like Branca, it suggests the sort of thinking that went on in their work together.  

“Galaxies (Sky)” takes a different approach, assembling 12 musicians on 12-string guitars. The song begins with a thinner sound than “8 Spring Street” as everyone plucks and plinks and generally figures out what they're doing as an intro. The sound, of course, gets big, but it's a strange sound. Each instrument maintains a classic 12-string chime and brightness, but together it turns into something underworldly. Imagine all your favorite jangle bands warming up in a large, resonant cavern, and you'll get the idea. This composition feels less directed, at least until the fuzz and the darkness set in about halfway through. “Alice Moki Jayne” pulled between peace and distress, but this one goes into the middle of the scariness to try to find some sort of rest in the midst of it before ultimately deciding just to leave with an uncomfortable bit of horror-shimmer.  

Spirit Counsel doesn't make for an easy listen, but largely because of its length. Moore's compositional work and tonal explorations remain intriguing on repeated listens. The music reflects on his various interests in a large scale way, and yet the microscopic adjustments throughout each piece drive the songs. The album is neither Daydream Nation nor The Ascension, but it's a wonderful part of that surprisingly coherent lineage.