Your Last Rites (.COM)

When you notice that some of the performers on Low Flying Owls are credited with providing, among other instrumentation, “field recording,” “bamboo wisk [sic],” “small objects,” and “seashells,” what do you expect the album to sound like? If you said, “I expect it to sound a lot like the Ramones,” then I am terribly sorry to hear about your traumatic brain injury! For anyone else familiar with Taylor Deupree’s label 12k, the delicate, experimental, found-sounds-turned-into-ambient approach will hardly be a surprise. Deupree and Stephen Vitiello are the prime musical instigators for Between, but the end result features another half-dozen or so musicians from the 12k umbrella, and the album covers a wonderful range of textures and instruments, including guitars, clarinet, drones, field recordings, piano, chimes, and more. Even more to the point, though, is that Low Flying Owls feels like the closest an ambient album has yet come to a jam band.