Moore Brothers / Aptos

American Dust

Brothers Thom and Greg Moore work in the in-between spaces. Their music, a dreamy update of '60s and '70s folk-rock, floats on spare, sparkling instrumentation and close, airy harmonies, recalling Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, and The Everly Brothers.  Raised in the shadow of Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains, in the unincorporated community of Altadena, the brothers have always found their voice in the spaces. between places. Aptos takes its name from another unincorporated California community, a cluster of villages and settlements in Santa Cruz County. The album sounds appropriately blissed-out, a soundtrack to lost dreams on the lost Pacific--yet it's also focused, with a keen ear toward taut pop melodies and sharp lyrics.  Aptos opens with the sharp jangle of "Daughter Feather" before touring through The Moore Brothers' strongest set of songs to date--from the start-and-stop dramatics of "Iraq" to the soulful falsetto-folk balladry of "Heard About You." Friend and fan Joanna Newsom contributes liquid harp to the aching "Good Heart, Money, and Rain." All in all, a welcome addition to the contemporary canon: a California folk record as concerned with precision and songcraft as it is with atmosphere and ambience.

• SHARE

  •  Twitter
  •  Stumbleupon
  •  Digg
  •  del.icio.us
  •  Facebook
  •  Mixx