Ensemble Economique ‎– The Fever Logic L.P.

Ensemble Economique has emerged as an unusually planet-circling creative valve for Arcata, CA beachcomber Brian Pyle. The last year alone he toured Scandinavia, Europe, and Russia – twice. Maybe his spirit’s too absorbent then, because he’s brought back some deeply heavier moods since his last outing on NNF, 2010’s demonic monsoon, Psychical. Recent splits with similar psychedelic unclassifiables like Lee Noble and Heroin In Tahiti have hinted at his bracing headspace, but he bears all on Fever Logic. Six songs smeared across 40 minutes, Pyle positions each composition as a slow-motion funereal landslide, grey clay electronics losing form, echoes of processed guitar, depressive synth mist, all drizzling down over wailing prisoner prayers. A few flirt with slightly more overt goth-gaze signifiers (“Walking Into The Light,” “We Come Spinning Out Of Control”), but the rest hew closer to miasmic abstraction, submerged mumbling and isolationist field recordings intertwined with descension melodies and spacious cathedrals of ritual guitar.