Snowflake and Fingerprint Machine

Thebrotheregg offer modest psychedelic-tinged indie pop on Snowflake and Fingerprint Machine, which has a wistful feel that's a little reminiscent of fellow Northwest artist Jeff Kelly. There are nice pastoral acoustic-electric guitar textures and subdued keyboards, as well as guest insertions for everything from violin and static to recorder, bassoon, flute, trumpet, and meows. In ambience they're in the same rough ballpark as early-'70s British eccentrics like Ray Davies and Kevin Ayers, though not explicitly derivative of those figures in particular. The hazily mixed lyrics do meander along random paths that might strike some as evocative, and some as meaningless; the song title "Cauldrons of Eyeball Soup" gives you an idea of what to expect. There are some tangents into avant-garde art rock noodling, with loops of recorder, varispeed voices, outer-space oscillations, and the like that contrast with the generally tuneful and gentle tenor of the songs with vocals. That alone might be enough to put it on the Olivia Tremor Control fan's shopping list. When they can combine the two streams, as on "Telescope" (which combines distant-megaphone vocals, eerie synth-pedal steel-like tones, and gruff strings into a pleasant whole) and "Fingerprint" (with its floating counterpoint harmonies and ripple-like sound effects), the band hits peaks otherwise not attained. Worth hearing for those looking for low-key psychedelic ambience in vocal rock, though it would be more affecting if the lyrics were less oblique and obfuscated.