Pocahaunted: "Hideous"

Let’s just get this out of the way: yes, the band name is awesome. It’s simultaneously obvious and obscure, and sums up the music exactly. Just think really hard about it and you’ll hear drones that in any higher-fi would sound like a new Constellation Records signing—except that they don’t give you the payoff, and well, they’re not dudes, they’re not Canadian, and all their stuff is on cassette (rock?).

While usually Pocahaunted’s songs stretch past the ten minute mark, “Hideous” keeps down near half of that. There is something perfect in how it builds on a lone guitar riff until it’s completely made itself clear; lately much of their (fairly prolific) output has been expanding on the instrumentation, and there’s been some weird tension between the simple, hardcore drones of their early stuff and the inevitable rock’n‘roll desire for some strings and a drummer. Here there’s just subtle build until the vocals kick in, wordlessly emoting something vague yet both ageless and immediate.

Just zone out. Don’t think about structure. Think about teepees in fuzzy sepia photographs. Pocahaunted’s about the groove, but not in the way you usually think about it. Rather, it’s a kind of groove you’d associate with an obscure ritual, one with the audio quality of Robert Pollard in the back of a cathedral and the mysterious soul of a new, soulful tribe with feathers on the cassettes.