“an expanded palette of textures and colors…and earthy songwriting. Loops and motifs rise up and fill the space like smoke from bonfires on the last nights of summer, and continue simmering in the dark afterwards.”

The title track opens with a simple glockenspiel melody and a gentle sprinkling of electronics, which eventually give way to droning atmospherics, a cyclical drum beat and Gordon’s vocals. ‘Bear, Again’ is a slightly strange pop song, kind of like those on Akron/Family’s Akron/Family II, while ‘With Water & Without’ is a really pretty, sounding almost like the ambient sounds from a lush jungle, the clicks of insects and calls of birds or frogs, quiet rattling percussion like the shuffling of feet, the vocals like an invocation to some benevolent forest spirit.

‘Yr Songs’ pops and quivers with almost geiger-counter style percussion, while ‘Shrieking into Pillows’ is slow and patient and melancholy.  It’s not exactly bright and sunshiney, but the whole thing has a sense of composure, of the slow and steady progress of summer. As Gordon puts it:

“All is not light and bouncy, by any means. There is surely darkness in here and maybe it all sounds dark to some people. But that’s neither here nor there. This is just the way the sounds feel to me.”

You can buy Trades on cassette via the fine folks at Lily Tapes and Discs via their Bandcamp page, or on limited edition CD from the Red Sled Choir Bandcamp. Downloads available on both too.

P.S. You can also buy a bundled option from Lily Tapes and Discs which has this tape plus the great tape by naps we reviewed a while back. It’s a good option.

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