Labradford: E luxo so

Because slow, subtle drones are Labradford's definitive trait, the Virginia trio would seem to be stuck in ambient purgatory. Get any faster or louder and you become something you're not; get any quieter or more restrained and the music vanishes altogether. Still, Labradford has bucked the odds by finding ways to make its simple music grow without abandoning its minimalist roots. E luxo so is the group's fifth full-length album, and a casual listen won't evince any new elements in the mix. Dig just a bit deeper into the album's six songs, though, and details begin to emerge. While languid lead-guitar lines and gently intoning bass notes are still the melodic focal point—if focus isn't too strong a notion for music this sleepy-eyed and lugubrious—more is being done with treated percussion loops and dubby effects, both hallmarks of Mark Nelson's side project Pan-American. E luxo so is subtly more interesting than the group's previous album, Mi Media Naranja: Acoustic piano often replaces gritty analog synths or organ, and the music is frequently enhanced by such stately touches as strings and dulcimers. If anything, E luxo so is Labradford's most overt move yet toward ambient music: The absence of vocals connects the fragmentary pieces even more clearly to such musicians as pianist Harold Budd or such works as Brian Eno's Music For Films series, where the factor that separates one song from another is ultimately just the scant few seconds between the end of the first and the beginning of the next. Like all good ambient music, E luxo so proves as engrossing as listening music as it is pleasant as background music, and though the menace of Labradford's past works still lingers, the results this time are more mature. E luxo so wiggles and moves gracefully like a living organism, pulsing hypnotically like a heartbeat and glowing moderately like the light of the sun reflecting off the moon.