The debut from Minneapolis-based instrumental improv trio Barlow/Petersen/Wivinus. "The Transparent World" is effectively the group's first proper release

(aside from a live-to-cassette, self-titled CDR limited to 100 copies and released last year on Stick It To The Man/Asymmetry to good responses on both sides

of the Atlantic), and contains ten tracks encompassing a wide range of mood, texture and instrumentation. Whereas their earlier disc explored the ether via

electric guitars, feedback and the multitude of sounds that can be derived from a variety of effects pedals, "The Transparent World" finds the group working

exclusively with acoustic instrumentation to achieve a sonic landscape that is at turns lush and austere, meditative and menacing. All tracks on the disc are

improvised at their core and utilize a wide variety of instruments and techniques, creating many sounds not normally associated with "acoustic" recordings.

Of course there are guitars (both six- and twelve-string), but often unusually tuned and occasionally bowed. Piano, dulcimer, mandolin (occasionally

augmented by e-bow and slide) bowed cymbals, the Freeman Monostring (played with a ballpeen hammer) the "rattletrap," bagpipe chanter and various other

peripheral devices are all used to create a very singular and evocative whole.

Musically, the disc ranges across a wide variety of styles and influences, but still retains a unified vision and a cohesive sound. Any number of genres can

be seen in fleeting glimpses throughout the recordings: menacing blues from the deepest edges of a swamp swimming with spirits and psychosis (as seen in the

opening cut, "Buried Under Crows"), avant soundscapes conjuring images of a creaking old house with a will all its own and possible ill intent (the

chillingly abrasive "That Night"), long and languid soundtracks toward the horizon at the end of a lengthy and perhaps lucid dream (as exemplified by the

echoing piano-laden closing track, "Retribution"). This release rests somewhere between the experimental avant-garde, the darkest psychedelic folk music and

the epic 360 degree horizons of pure drone/dream music. Fans of Third Ear Band, Makoto Kawabata's "Inui" project, Six Organs of Admittance and select movie

soundtracks will surely find something to appreciate here.