lay llamas: ostro

This is the debut album from Lay Llamas, the Rome-based duo of Gioele Valenti and Nicola Giunta. Recorded in an old house in the Segesta countryside of Sicily, Valenti and Giunta soaked up the history-imbued environment. The makeshift studio was located alongside the great Temple of Hera that dates all the way back to 6th century B.C. These recording sessions have resulted in a heavily layered album, filled (but not clogged) with various instrumentation -- from the usual guitars, bass, synth and drums, to the more unexpected sounds of Tibetan bells and ukulele. Ostro reflects a continent-leaping, platform-splitting array of personal influences that then seeps into their lysergic output. Purely on a musical level there is a joint love of artists such as Ennio Morricone, which then splits off into the structured and the song-heavy (Angels Of Light, Nick Drake, Mike Scott) to the rhythmic, both the hypnotic and groove-laden sort (Fela Kuti, Broadcast, Sun Araw, Kraftwerk). Italian tradition plays a pivotal role, too, with the creeping tones and floating atmospheres of '60s and '70s Italian library and soundtrack music playing a subtle supporting-role. Ostro is a constantly shifting record, never remaining stuck or fixated on anything for too long. Crossing continents, be it musically, stylistically or physically, seems to be something the pair return to over and over again, and the subtle radiations of Africa that can be heard on the record are no accident. While the duo work from a shared vision that places a keen focus on stream-of-consciousness approaches or, as Valenti puts it, "a prismatic panorama, or well, a BRAINMATIC PANORAMA," there really is an ambiguity, an uncertainness and a sense of the unknown, the otherworldly and the mystical when traversing through the vast spheres of the record. The pair's own descriptions of some of the album's tracks are testament to the sprawling, shifting, mass of it all -- "Suicide and Oneida dancing together around a big campfire." Some records aim to exist by not coming from a particular place but to exist in the transitions and journeys in-between them. Be them real, mystical or imaginary, present or past, the focus is on the movement rather than the end destination and the Lay Llamas' debut album is most certainly one such record.