Psych-rock explorers Rhyton last released Kykeon, the band’s most focused and carefully constructed record to date. It showed new corners of the band’s ever-expansive sound, but for their new record, Navigation by Starlight, the trio went back to their more primal instincts. The album consists of two excellent, improvised sides. The first, “Lovejoy Paper Trail”, is a rock-trio experiment. David Shuford’s guitar doesn’t craft riffs so much as is carves out spaces in the track, drifting out into the ether while Jimy SeiTang’s bass and Rob Smith’s drums hold down an intricate, spare set of rhythms. Shuford eventually erupts into walls of guitar wailing that feel more meditative than showy, but what’s fascinating is how these players can shift the dynamics of their playing mid-track. The song seems to, like so many, build to guitar solo, but the song then shifts again, and it’s Shuford’s guitar playing foundation while SeiTang and then Smith explore the space they’ve created with intricate runs and a curious clashing of their instruments. The song plays within the rock trio world, and then turns it on its head to bracing effect. The second track, “Scylla and Charibdis”, plays even more in space, preferring to break apart more and more rather than find its shape like the first track did. The song deals in curious sonic shifts, from Eastern-influenced droning to rippling folk-rock tones and eventually into spacious, ambient explorations. Both tracks are huge, all-encompassing sides, things for the listener to gladly get lost in. But Rhyton still retains its secret weapon on this record. No matter how wide-open the sounds get, you can still hear the tight connection between these players, the lean heartbeat that sends all that life into the far-flung extremities of Navigation by Starlight.