Three musicians with DC indie rock connections band together to improvise music for film scores, and the results are documented on this album. Farina and Littleton are likely familiar names, their work in Karate, Secret Stars, and Ida being fairly well-known. Gray, too, was of the DC indie world (having played drums in late-period Tsunami), but also has a jazz background, having led his own ensemble (Bamboula 2000) and played in Stone House with noted free-jazz shredder Joe Morris. The songs here are, somewhat surprisingly, of the latter ilk; the closest you get to a dreamy indie melody is on the opener, ?Harmonia,? on which Littleton?s harmonium drones behind Farina?s familiar-sounding MacKaye-influenced arpeggia. But the comfort of that piece gives way to the harsher kicks of the title track, which never quite attack the listener with dissonance as did, say, Last Exit, but the same kind of spirit is there albeit in tamer form. I think that?s Farina driving the cover of Charlie Haden?s ?Song for Che,? and it?s a gem. His guitar has a Slinty ring to it but he?s not out bound for spiderland; he?s rattling the heavens in a far more jarring and unpredictable way. ?Point Judith? continues the drama, but more subtly, with a dour minor-key melody subbing in for the prior track?s glorious mountaintop shout. Album closer ?Pouring Water on Stone? is its own drone universe, a journey to the center of sustain. It?s not that that?s never been done before, but that?s not really a good critique of improvised music, is it, to humph that it?s been done? The question is: do the musicians push themselves to create new sonic spaces, do they throw a harsh and bare light on beauty? The answer here: yes. 8/10 -- Sal Addays (28 June, 2006)