Nobody and Mystic Chords of Memory

Like baked, cheating poker buddies, California beat rearranger Nobody (Elvin Estela) and Mystic Chords of Memory (Christopher Gunst, Jen Cohen) mesh perfectly on Tree Colored See ... in a blend of acid-trip high jinks and astute drum sampling. Though Gunst might be better known for his desert ditties as the frontman in the dormant country-psyche outfit Beachwood Sparks, he along with Aislers Set member Cohen doesn't fall far from the Buffalo Springfield-reared tree. Actually the sparse, countrified textures that sprung from multiple Boss delay pedals on Beachwood Sparks's debut album show sometimes on Tree, notably in the shuffling-percussion prairie-bed narrative "Coyote's Song (When You Hear It Too)" and the brief backward-trekking veldt of "Klaw Prints." Tree radiates the same collaboration chemistry that surfaced last year on Nobody's And Everything Elsealbum, when he paired with the same flower children for a Flaming Lips cover. Sneakier card tricks play out in the producer's strong sense of when to use a scattered spread of subtle beats ("Floating") or a soulful hip-hop break ("Decisions, Decisions") for Gunst and Cohen's sprawling, sunny folk.

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More About

• Jen Cohen
• Christopher Gunst
• Beachwood Sparks
• Elvin Estela
• The Flaming Lips