Pontiak
Maker
(Thrill Jockey)


This album puzzled me the first time I listened to it, and I think now I know the reason why: I was listening to it on headphones on a train traveling underneath London, and the album was recorded in a 12’ x 12’ shack in rural Virginia. We weren’t even close to being on the same page.

“Maker” is crank-up-your-speakers-til-they-rattle music. The opener, “Laywayed”, sets the tone, buzzing guitar echoing a sorta bluesy but not quite riff against itself, against the drum, against the bass, back against itself again. It’s like the music is throwing itself against the walls of the tiny little studio. Actually, it’s probably not so much “like” that, but rather, it probably is that. “Wax Worship” uses longer, droning tones with both the instruments and the vocals to similar overlapping, up against the walls motherfuckers effect, whereas “Headless Conference” drops the vocals and spends just over a minute machinegunning your brains out.

One impressive aspect of this album is that Pontiak’s tone is always more or less the same, but no two songs sound alike: “Wild Knife Fight” is driven by a syncopated bassline and terrific interaction between the lead and backing vocals, “Heat Pleasure” is a minute and a half of cymbals with the stringed players taking the backup role (you know you want to hear it now), and “Aestival” slows down to a lilting, softer sound that seems to subtly ripple outwards until the ripples are slapping each other stupid. The title track clocks in at thirteen-plus minutes, never seems to do anything spectacular, and yet again, creates an intriguing piece of music through the nuances of the interactions between the instruments, before changing course and breaking out into a Zeppelinish riff at the halfway mark, then breaking that riff back down into something else as the song swaggers across the back half. Then on “Seminal Shining” these guys pull out the brushes and the acoustic guitars and a terrific vocal duet. “Honey” and “AASSTTEERR” strap the dirty guitars back on, and I suspect that the latter is two flowers intertwining. But not really.