Led by guitarist Eric Berg, Athens, Ga.’s Japancakes began as an experiment: What would it be like to get a bunch of friends together and play a D chord for 45 minutes? The short answer: hypnotic. The long answer: Well, if there’s absolutely no rehearsal, you could roll tape, let Berg cut and paste to his heart’s content, then create something as gently soothing as 1999’s If I Could See Dallas, which shape-shifts through more than an hour of space-age, neo-psychedelic, ambient-country ragas. Japancakes spent that first album finding their signature sound: three parts drone and one part melody. A year later, Berg recut the same sessions for the harder-edged Down The Elements; in 2001, when the players reunited for The Sleepy Strange, they finally knew what they were supposed to sound like. The Sleepy Strange is as good as it gets, finding the perfect balance between mellow atmospherics and earthy post-rock. Bonus Material: None. [www.darla.com]
—Kenny Berkowitz
