Album review: Mountains, Centralia (Thrill Jockey)

Centralia is by far the most satisfying release to date by the Brooklyn-based minimalist post-rock duo Mountains.

Its seven long tracks, averaging between nine and 10 minutes apiece, unhurriedly and meticulously blend discrete acoustic and electronic elements into sublime, meditative passages whose gradual metamorphoses are all but subliminal. "Sand" is typical: opening with gentle, feathery swells of synth tones, it builds slowly shifting dunes of organ and bowed-string tones . The obvious debt to legendary minimalist Terry Riley is most apparent in the interlacing keyboard undulations of "Circular C", but it's a debt handsomely repaid throughout Centralia in the sheer care and subtlety with which Mountains construct these engrossing pieces.

Download: Sand; Circular C; Tilt; Propeller