Kenseth Thibideau – Repetition (2010) (AWESOME !!!)

Genre : Experimental, errr cmiiw, but this is not exactly post-rock.., i dunno.., but the instrumental songs is Awesome.
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Tracklist :

1. Black Hole
2. Moon 5
3. Eclipse
4. Moon 2
5. Disguise
6. Moon 4
7. Moon 8
8. Lo

In the past dozen years, Kenseth Thibideau has become a staple of the Southern California independent music scene. He co-founded a pair of highly-acclaimed experimental rock groups (Tarentel and Rumah Sakit) while in San Francisco, then returned to San Diego to find himself suddenly collaborating with many of the city’s most respected and acclaimed musicians. He soon became a touring member of Pinback and Three Mile Pilot, and formed Sleeping People, the frenetic instrumental group that also featured a pre-Dirty Projectors Amber Coffmann—all while continuing his semi-solo Howard Hello project with Marty Anderson (Okay, Dilute). No longer masked in monikers, Thibideau is making what may be the most subtly rewarding music of his career, displaying the countless strengths of one of the west coast’s most genuinely talented musicians.

How apt that the track list for Repetition, Kenseth Thibideau’s solo debut, relies so heavily on space imagery. “Black Hole,” “Eclipse,” a handful of numbered “Moon” tracks — the overall feeling is like reading the instructions of a child’s mobile illustrating the cosmos. That sense of vast space, perhaps beheld with a kind of innocent wonder, is at play throughout this album, inviting you to wander through each soft track and lose yourself in the placidity of it. The risk with a record like this is actually getting lost, while the artist in question becomes absorbed in impenetrable sound experiments.

But that’s not a worry with Thibideau, whose music is always accessible, even as instrumentals. They are indeed spacey, but without being cold or remote. On the contrary, the quiet keyboard effects, punctuated by reverb-tinged guitars and airy vocals, remind the listener of Pinback — a band, incidentally, that Thibideau played in for a while. The other major act he’s known for is artsy space-rock group Tarantel, and fans of either can safely pick this up and enjoy it.

Opening track “Black Hole” sets the mood for the record with half-whispered lyrics and muted, meditative rock. “Moon 2″ offers a very different side to Thibideau: an urgent, bass-driven song that even has some groove to it. It shatters the calm introspection on the album, though it could use a few more tracks like this to liven the general mood.

Overall, Repetition does live up to its name. Occasionally it fades into atmospheric background noise, but for the most part, there’s enough going on in each track to keep up that pensive mood.