Windy and Carl - Consciousness

The most underrated band in the Kranky pantheon? This 20 year-plus anniversary reissue of Consciousness sure suggests it. Formed in Michigan in the early 90s, the husband-wife duo arrived right in the post-4AD spacerock sweetspot shared with Labradford, Magnog, Bowery Electric et al, but didn't actually end up making their way over to Kranky until 1998 with the release of their fourth record, Depths. That was a work of rare minimalist poise, but when Consciousness followed a few years later, they'd really hit their stride. Unlike its predecessor, this was just a single disc-er, showing that the pair could function just as affectingly in the short form as the long. For the most part, the songs themselves still clock in with fairly hefty run times (two go some way past the 10 minute mark), though there's just six here, each a highly nuanced journey into ethereal drone-ambience that rivals both Stars of the Lid for elegance and the elegiac qualities of Roy Montgomery. More so, when Windy Weber sings on 'The Llama's Dream' it's as sweetly seductive as any shoegaze lullaby stacking up bare-plays on TikTok. The title track is probably the stand out moment, though, nearly 13 minutes of slow-tension/no release infinite horizon euphoria rivalled, really, only by Yo La Tengo and Low at their very best. I'd like to think Windy & Carl are only one viral video away from fame. They surely deserve it. But on Consciousness they went one better: they became immortal. Keep that like a secret.