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If Thousands
If Thousands is Christian McShane and Aaron Molina from Duluth, Minnesota, who having decided to depart from their respective backgrounds in classical performance and punk have collaborated to attempt something quite different. The result is a sound grounded less on performance and based much more on assembly, repetition, and duration. With the help of Alan Sparhawk, who produced and mixed the album, McShane and Molina have built resonant instrumental pieces that sound oceanic in their tendency to roll together different recurring samples with the musicians' work, producing a reverberating blend of fluid sound.Chair Kickers Union
A few songs have vocals, but their inevitable shift of focus onto lyrics and melody is not as absorbing as those tracks that draw your concentration to qualities of intensity and variation. The cover of Joy Division's "Isolation," while beautiful, seems a little out of place and distracting because of its prominent placement as the second track of the album. It's too much of a sidetrack or nod to something else, whereas one of the overall strengths of 'Yellowstone' is its introspectiveness. Songs are composed through persistent use of particular tones (generally repeating phrases on bass, guitar, and keyboards with a few other interesting sounds thrown in) that are drawn out and cycled with careful fluctuations and variety, a process then repeated with different approaches as the album progresses. This technique, along with the sheer length of 'Yellowstone' (over an hour), creates the feeling of being drawn ever deeper into something to emerge at the other end of the album. It's important to emphasize that despite the careful attention If Thousands has given to the detail in each song, their work seems neither technical nor calculating. Instead, it's possible to be enveloped by the music and engaged by the similarity and difference of the patterns at work within the songs and from one song to the next—like looking into a fire for a long time as it seems to dance and change. 
