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Windy & Carl, Golden Cities

The ambient/drone/ psych/shoegaze/dreampop/minimalist/experimental/space-rock duo Windy & Carl may garner comparisons to Brian Eno and M83, but they are most like Houston natives and Kranky labelmates Charalambides: a married couple that makes spacious, desolate, largely instrumental music based on guitar processed heavily with reverb and delay. Of the two groups, Windy & Carl's music is purer and even more subdued, and can be almost stoic in its unbending attention to an extended drone. The 2008 release Songs for the Broken Hearted, their fourth for Kranky, has some vocals, but is mostly comprised of an imposing expanse of drone and murmur — unforgiving, but nonetheless pretty as heck. The couple was most active in the late 1990s; since 2001, they have reportedly put most of their efforts into running Stormy Records in their hometown of Dearborn, Michigan, and this is their first tour in quite some time. Local quartet Golden Cities favors a loud, rock-oriented approach to experimentation that draws on Mogwai and other post-rock bands; this show kicks off their first tour, which will take them to the Atlantic coast and the Midwest. The band's self-titled debut came out last fall.

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Daniel Mee