Sound

Barn Owl - Void Redux

Tom Jenkins | Thursday 11 April, 2013 14:00

Barn Owl – Void Redux from Thrill Jockey Records on Vimeo.

If daylight trips through the scorching California desert have a plethora of associated infamous pop moments – too many to mention here – then picture this: Night has settled on said desert scene, you’re crawling, dazed and bleeding along the highway tarmac. Under a cold, cloudless sky the only heat is the still-burning wreckage of your hire car several hundred feet behind you, from which you have just emerged as the only survivor. The day’s soundtrack of sunny 60s pop, 90s alt-rock and hipster-friendly R&B has twisted in your memory like the chassis of your Chevrolet, into a conglomerate of sounds infinitely more sinister, pulsating and dark … sounds not too dissimilar to the music of Jon Porras and Evan Caminiti, aka Barn Owl.

Ok, so I’m not really selling it to you here but the San Francisco duo maintain a sense of rhythm and route throughout their chillingly atmospheric, evocative compositions, allowing them to hop, skip and jump over the inevitable descent into formless dirge so often associated with this type of music – Porras describes it as ‘improvisation within considered arrangements’. The duo’s new album V is released this coming Monday (April 15) via Thrill Jockey and you can catch them live at The Lexington, May 1. Stream the frantically edited video for album opener Void Redux, above.

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