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08 April 2004
Tulsa Drone, No Wake (Dry County)
Tulsa Drone's debut album No Wake features cinematic instrumental music based on structures similar to those used by Godspeed! You Black Emperor and associates, but this group uses traditional folk instruments. The band's dark sound depends on Peter Neff's bass hammered dulcimer, and is augmented by a standard guitar-bass-drums set-up and occasional horns. Tulsa Drone's arrangements allow the dulcimer to establish moods that you wouldn't associate with the instrument. Each of the eight tracks build slowly to create tension but seldom release it. Although the pieces are usually under five minutes, the album plays like one long mood piece. In a way, that's a success, but it's also a comment on the band's inability to create any standout tracks. No Wake is a wonderful whole, but it could be improved if there were more interesting parts to it. Still, Tulsa Drone has made alt-country-post-rock a genre worthy of a better name.
— Justin Cober-Lake
.: posted by Editor 7:28 AM
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