Yesterday... and Tomorrow's Shells

Libraness is the new solo project from Ash Bowie of Polvo and Helium. Since Helium is Mary Timony's baby, this is mostly Polvo-sounding, and for me, Polvo has always been a hard-to-acquire taste -- dissonance for dissonance's sake. These tracks are said to be a "more avant-garde representation of Ash's earlier days with Polvo" that "didn't really fit into the Polvo mold." That can only mean trouble. Tracks like the acoustic "The Memory" sound like East India meets the '60's West Coast hippy nation. "Richard Petty" distorts Bowie's voice over shimmery noise and weird nightmare guitar sounds that are sure to drive anyone out of your car or home. Not strange enough to be considered experimental, not tuneful enough to be considered pop or rock. When there is a melody on hand and some restraint applied, like on broken-wheel pulsed "Hit the Horizon," the pseudo-blues of "Face on Backwards," or the wake-up-and-die instrumental "Grief Mechanism," there's enough to raise an eyebrow of interest. Regardless, after numerous listenings, I still found myself constantly turning the volume down.