CLOUDLAND CANYON
Lie In Light

There seem to be two prime outposts through which you can travel on the way to Weird City: Japan and Germany. Those who take their coffee with lava, head east. But for those who take solace in the more hypnotic, icier rhythmic experiments that piped out of West German squats in the ‘70s, there’s nary a shortage of malleable sounds worth fetishizing. Rather than filter their love of krautrock pulses through kitsch, this American/German duo has bundled up its rhythmic proclivities and psychedelic hard-ons in great seas of lunar synth washes. In crafting Lie In Light, Cloudland Canyon beamed it all back to the moon. The album could’ve been a mere collection of plodding genre exercises, but Lie In Light is just the opposite. It’s an insanely well-orchestrated aural experience that, despite its cloying references to krautrock, rarely forces its hand. Every flourish and texture is in its right place. And whether you’re set for a freakout in your bedroom (“White Woman”) or a night on the roof (“Heme”), Lie In Light has all the textures and sonic landscapes you’ll need. [Kranky, www.kranky.net]

—David Bevan