Frihavn

From the ashes of such sonically experimental acts like Southpacific and Summerside comes Frihavn, an ambient blues band that focus on making music from an "anti-connect the chord" stance. Led by Joachim Toelke, Frihavn has released two CDs that combine the melodic instrumentation of his former band, Southpacific, with a stripped down combo of bass, drums and guitar. Less frequent are the layered walls of feedback, which have been replaced with grooves, jangling guitars and carefully placed distortion. The songs range from slow jam sessions to elegant blues riffs using slide guitar. Flowing without any stoppage, all of the songs seem to live in harmony, though some of them couldn't be any more different. A song like "Diesel Fumes," with its fast flutter of white noise and pounding drums, sounds nothing like "Idealise," which begins with a delicately hollow acoustic guitar that bursts into an explosion of distortion. Recorded in a rehearsal space, these two CDs rely on raw, lo-fi production that actually gives the music more life, which is a great thing to achieve when recording a demo.