Town and Country

Listening to this recording is like making slow, tender love to someone you have raised three children with. Gentle acoustic sounds (string bass, bass clarinet, harmonium, celeste, guitar, hand chimes and bell) stray and meander through seven loosely focused songs, filled with leisurely repetition, surprising lead changes and delicate harmonies and discord. Town and Country are four musicians from Chicago, reputedly very active in that city's improv scene. This recording is their third full-length and took a year to complete. The result owes as much to modern composition as improvisation. The rhythms and melodies are wholly unpredictable and comfortably obvious. Sam Prekop contributed the cover photos, which brings to mind his own self-titled recording in 1999, on which Town and Country's Josh Abrams (who plays string bass, bells and celeste on C'mon) played bass and piano. Both albums are simple albums with many layers of complexity. Absorbing, sweet and rich.