ATTACHEDHANDS
ATLANTICA EP
WORDS: LOGAN HALLEY-WINSETT

Even to avid listeners of ambient and drone music, the endless variations on the minimalist theme can tend to swirl together in the head. Stand-out acts like Stars of the Lid or Eluvium have made names for themselves in the wider indie world by building slow, soothing, soporific ambience (in fact, I sleep to them nightly), but it's hard to really improve upon a formula that is stubbornly without landmarks. Florida based Attachedhands manage to bring something new to the table with their latest EP, and while they may not be the band to make you fall in love with ambient music, their contribution to the genre is a worthwhile effort.

With a setup of myriad keyboards, delay/loop pedals and eclectic sound samples, the group generates a dense, tangible soundscape. Opener "Drawing Polar Bears" starts like a truck sputtering to life, then builds into crunchy punches of sound. The song explodes at the half minute mark, revealing the the full spectrum of the band's appetite for sound composition. Attachedhands grace their album with a sensitivity toward rhythm and noise reminiscent of unlikely indie superstars The Books, but instead of being sampled they are actually creating the music. The group's sound is challenging to describe, but throughout the five songs on Atlantica they create an aurally pleasing, comprehensive groove that, by recalling the calmer aspects of Krautrock's repetitive side, puts the listener into a trance. Although the band sometimes loses the thread of their songs among the obscurity of its enveloping sound, the listener is gently invited to forgive. For example, "Sleep Not With Sadness" starts off with a minute and a half of the characteristic static crumple, which is just a little too long to justify, but once the rest of the song comes to life, piling sounds on top of sounds, it's hard not to get lost in the churns and swells and forget about it all over again.