Almaden

A few releases from Almaden have graced the RSTB mailbox and each with its own personality. Michael Hilde aka Almaden plays very much in the hermit folk style that Kyle Field and Phil Elverum have claimed as their personal sanctuary. Songs range from the expansive and meditative "Buffalo and Daughter" from an album whose name could very well devour the rest of this review so we'll call it The Dream Continues(267 Lattajjaa); to the upbeat scuzz folk romps that grace Come On, Do The Monster Mash. The latter album, which seems to be an early working out of styles swings enthusiastically between influences, following noise with ambience and folk with pop, even squeezing in an ode to the aforementioned Fields. The Dream Continues refines Hilde's style, still wafting between folk and ambience but with a steady assurance and soft cohesiveness that is strung together by the themes of Life, Meditation and Death. Almaden is a corrosive mixture eating at the conceptions of pop and folk and lighting the bedroom anthem on fire with dissonance.

Download:
[MP3] Almaden - Poets Grow Your Fingernails (From Come On, Do The Monster Mash
[MP3] Almaden - Buffalo Forever (From The Dream Continues)

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