Pullman
Turnstyles & Junkpiles
Thrill Jockey
Released: Aug. 1999

I wish there was a way to say "porch-sittin' music" without making you think it's going to be boring. There's not much else you could do to this music - it's too slow for making love or jogging, and you wouldn't want to miss the interesting-ness by falling asleep to it. The only activity that makes sense to me is sitting in a creaky porch swing or an old rocking chair, enjoying a gentle motion, watching the fireflies, and maybe talking to a friend, but just a little, and quietly. It's good stuff.

Pullman came into being when Chris Brokaw, Bundy K. Brown, Curtis Harvey, and Doug McCombs, a bunch of guys you know and trust, got together to make their guitars sound real nice. If you don't know them, I'd like to say you should look into getting that taken care of, but that's presumptuous so I won't. If you don't trust them, there's something fundamentally wrong with your "trust" circuit, and I gladly volunteer to fix it myself.

If you know Tortoise, you've at least heard of some of these guys. This is less experimental than Tortoise, but just as introspective. No nutty xylophones or samples - this is just strings being plucked. Ambient-ish, cajun-y, bluegrasslike, or walking-down-the-edge-of-the-Seine-esque, it's big fun to try to figure out where these guitars are going next. It usually turns out to be somewhere I want to be. If you're a fan of pleasant things, this album is something you might enjoy.

hey look! it's another music review originally posted at http://shrapnelurl.cjb.net/

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