April 7-13, 2005

musicpicks

Eluvium

rock/pop

"All the songs sound the same" — the cry of the lazy listener. Ambient electronic music is plagued by weak critics who don't pay attention to gradation and detail, and really, we could spend pages explaining how the eight tracks on Eluvium's new Talk Amongst The Trees (Temporary Residence Ltd.) are, like, separate compositions. But we won't, since in this case the criticism is pretty well-founded. Score one for the weak and lazy. Subtle deviations in pitch and tone notwithstanding, the languid, ethereal phase-shifting in, say, "Show Us Our Homes" isn't tremendously dissimilar to the languid, ethereal phase-shifting in "Everything To Come." But Portland, Ore., composer Matthew Cooper works his variation between albums, not between songs. While he's currently fixated on the beauty of the drone, his overall work as Eluvium runs a slight gamut; last year's excellent An Accidental Memory In Case Of Death is a suite of seven spectral piano compositions, and his 2003 debut Lambent Material is more song-based. All of it is serene, all of it is affecting.

Sat., April 9, 9 p.m., $8, with Isaac Hurt, Turing Machine and Mono, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888, www.thekhyber.com.

—John Vettese