Windsor for the Derby
Against Love (Secretly Canadian)
Reviewed by Austin Powell, Fri., Sept. 17, 2010
Windsor for the Derby
Against Love (Secretly Canadian)The tortoise of Austin's Trance Syndicate era during the 1990s, Windsor for the Derby continues inching forward. Recalling the duo's collaborative process at the millennium, Against Love was hatched long distance, Dan Matz and Jason McNeely exchanging static drones and shaping them into something more substantial. WFTD's eighth album offers yet another slow-motion marvel that, like 2008's How We Lost, gets evenly divided between bedroom pop and ambient passages that suggest Cluster's collaborations with Brian Eno ("Moon Shadows," "Tropical Depression") and Michael Rother ("Singer 1968"). The two sides never ebb and flow together but rather remain oddly disconnected. Highlights include the linear space echo of "Queen of the Sun," which suggests Galaxie 500, while "Our Love's a Calamity" and "Dull Knives" tilts toward the sad grandeur of Damon & Naomi, the latter lamenting, "We're idiots, at least this time, trading love for a safe place to hide." It's progress at any rate.
