Dragging An Ox Through Water – The Tropics Of Phenomenon January 14, 2010

Artist: Dragging An Ox Through Water

Album: The Tropics Of Phenomenon

Release: Freedom To Spend, 2009

Genre: Experimental

RIYD: Mount Eerie?

I found out about this album a few weeks ago from Forest Gospel, a music blog that posts reviews of some of the more obscure and experimental stuff that’s been coming out. Sometimes the albums they post are a bit too weird for me, but this one strikes just the right balance between noisy sonic experiments and listenable folk tunes, teetering on the crossover between noise, electronic, ambient, and folk music. I’ve never heard anything quite like The Tropics Of Phenomenon before, as you can tell from the lack of ideas for the RIYD, but Brian Mumford’s Dragging An Ox Through Water project is so immediately charming that it felt as familiar as something I had listened to over and over.

After listening to the album just once I was unpleasantly surprised to find that I was already one of the five “top listeners” on DAOTW’s last.fm page. It’s a real shame that this guy hasn’t gotten more exposure, so I guess I’ll try to help him along as much as I can. I might get in trouble for this, but I think it’d be more of a crime not to share this album, so here’s a Megaupload link to download the album and the debut EP “Rebukes!”. You can stream the second track from the album, “Snowbank Treatment,” below to see if you like the sound: