Magic Central: Breathe Owl Breathe

My current amorous buzz for Autumn, an annual affliction for me, is facilitated wonderfully by Breathe Owl Breathe.

Playful and poetic, "...remember when this magic was magical?..." combining a spacey-jazz thing with a fractured folk thing and having it come out as something combining the dashing surrealist blend of pop sensibilities peppered by, perhaps the sparser, less noisy, ("Autumn-Sweater"-flavored) Yo La Tengo jaunts or the plaintive, yes quirky, pop-leaning endearment of a Jonathan Richman.

They combine the familiar with the transcendent, -we're pleasingly waltzed by the girl-group/50's-pop style drum punch of "Icy Cave Dancers" with its warm fuzzy vocal duet and it's unabashed pop ballad refrain: "ooh-wooh" cooing down over a purring organ - yet later on "Lake Light" we're detached into a meditative meandering, lilted only but the rich tones of guitar, piano and vocals that waft across the sparse structure filling it with vivid imagery of the oncoming winter months.

Breathe Owl Breathe - Lake Light from Miscellany on Vimeo.

For just three (Micah Middaugh's honeyed baritone and prickled guitar work, Andrea Moreno-Beals' soft airy voice with cello/banjo accompaniment, Trevor Hobbs' effective, accommodating percussion) they fill up the sound, yes, but bring in such a refreshing array of flavors and styles: with vibes, to organ, to--yes--banjo, to those dizzying harmonies ("Swimming" feels transcribed straight from the watery wisha-wisha-wisha of a thick-layered dream drummed right out of your wonder-loving mind's tingly synapses) it inevitably teases up the old cliche of each-song-sounding-different... having it's own character. True songwriters, these ones be...


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