Fighting Records
2006
Mighty Ocean And Nine Dark Theaters
About This Album
Astronautalis debut album You and Yer Good Ideas did indeed shake a few good ideas out, but most were stuck under the album's lo-fi production, which left behind little more than the impression of a pair of Southern stoners messing around with bedroom tapes. Mighty Ocean and Nine Dark Theaters presents a far different aural vista, and thus this CD couldn't be further removed its predecessor. It doesn't, however, make categorizing Astronautalis any easier. Rap poet? Slacker soliloquist? C&W story spinner? Indie singer/songwriter? At some point or other, the artist falls into all these categories, sometimes simultaneously. The music further blurs the edges -- hip-hop rhythms; ambient, synthesized soundscapes; gorgeous picked guitar that shift from iridescent indie to twangy country and on to shimmering pop. Most, but not all, of the pieces billow dreamily away, giving the album a diffuse, otherworldly feel where time slows or stops entirely. That atmosphere perfectly dovetails with Astronautalis lyrics/poems/raps, in which nothing much happens, no conclusions are really reached, and life, such as it is, seems utterly disconnected from the outside world. This isn't so much a slacker's paradise as a limbo-land, where the living ain't so easy, but whose sharp edges are smoothed over by alcohol, sex (often passing for love), and drugs.
Track List (try tracks 2,3,5,7 and 10)

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