Desert Solitaire

DESERT SOLITAIRE picks up right where WESTERN SPACES left off but adds Michael Stearns' own synthetic gigantism to the fiery Roach/Braheny team. Opening with the awesomely percussive magnetic fields of "Flatlands," the album brings the combined flair of all three sound technicians to the fore. Haunting pastel shades of electronics intensify a barren landscape made flesh by the cricket-speak of log drums and ticking digital chronometers.

The somnambulent "Specter" is nine minutes of igneous ambience, Roach's cooing drones speckled with rain showers of dewy, shimmering synth-drops. "Highnoon" suggests a confrontation of sorts, its gusty electronics forming great vortices that threaten to sandblast the desert floor back into the Stone Age. DESERT SOLITAIRE, like its title, maintains a palpable presence best experienced in a dark room, frozen at sunset before a yawning chasm, with the trio's cavernous sound sculptures providing the only true accompaniment.