The Complete Recordings

Seattle photographer/artist Bootsy Holler and Posies co-leader Ken Stringfellow collaborate on these six brief pieces of uncategorizable, atmospheric, experimental pop. Somewhere between My Bloody Valentine and early Pavement (but closer to the former, thanks to Holler's breathy, deadpan vocals and curtain-of-needles guitar), the results are too noisy to be called dreamy, but there's a sensual, inviting quality to these often surprisingly melodic sounds that makes you wish the duo had completed more than half a dozen tracks before splitting. The oddly catchy "Deep Sleep" is the closest to a conventional pop song, since it has a recognizable verse-chorus-verse structure, and Holler's babytalk vocals fit the melody nicely. The Portishead-on-mushrooms "Seahorse Swim" is also a standout, as is the bizarro-world cover of Frank and Nancy Sinatra's "Something Stupid." Warning for musically conservative Posies fans: this ain't Dear 23, Part II.