Lewis & Clarke: Live On WPRB

There’s a new digital turntable console out there that will read your vinyl records with perfect exactitude, as well as set you back about 15 grand. Now, as much as you and I both salivate at the prospect, I don’t recommend you push your audio equipment budget quite so far. But you will need at least a perfunctory set-up to enjoy the limited edition 12” “Live on WPRB”, by Pennsylvania’s Lewis & Clarke. The four-song platter, recorded back in February, links 2005’s Bare Bones and Branches with an upcoming disc, Blasts of Holy Birth. I don’t know the former, but this teaser is enough to snap me to attention and look forward to the latter. Though frontman Lou Rogai often tours solo, this live set of expansive, intricate folk is fleshed out by a variety of textures. The 10-plus-minute “Before It Breaks You” floats along on a cloud of drone lined with late-night vocals, plinking keys, and brushed cymbals. “Blasts of Holy Birth” starts out hushed and sparse, but every note is wound up with import, like the quiet minutes of the day when your mind has the chance to cut through the mundane and focus on sometimes difficult realities.