Windy & Carl

Last year, a friend came to me desperate for a proper album to play at his father’s funeral. A stack of suggestions later, the service was graced by a true musical nirvana via the gentle, deliberate drones of Windy & Carl. The Michigan husband-and-wife duo must have planted a fly on the wall that day, because they have re-emerged this winter with a double-disc elegy of sorts called The Dream House/Dedications to Flea, their first release in four years. Coincidentally, one disc was inspired by the death of Windy Weber’s mother, while the other is for their former dog Flea. Opener “The Eternal Struggle” begins with a single sustained organ note melding with the warm ripples of Carl Hultgren’s reverberated guitar. It unfurls slowly over half an hour, culminating in the cathartic rustling of wind chimes and leading into the melodic second piece, a patient, feedback-laden procession dancing atop that rich organ drone. Together with Weber’s poignant liner notes, disc two is the Where the Red Fern Grows of ambient music. W&C’s jangly guitars and bass weave a warm, comfortable cocoon, and the field recordings of Flea rustling through the snow and panting mischievously radiates the nostalgic magic of old Super 8 home movies. Elemental, seductive and minimal, this is a winter masterpiece to remember.