Hammock - Kenotic (2005)

Tennessee's finest ambient/post-rock duo Hammock first gained exposure with their 2005 debut album Kenotic and successfully proved those who think Nashville is only made up of adored gospel choirs and country singer-songwriters wrong. Although compared to minimalistic artists such as Eluvium and Stars of Lid, Hammock's music is structured and strung together by textures upon textures of evolving synths, intimate drum beats and guitars that whisper with distortion, drone, reverberation, delay, phase, etc., etc. Marc Byrd and Andrew Thompson's success comes from their ability to create relaxingly sluggish waves of tonal color that may stimulate the listener's desire to gaze upon the stars hanging in an autumn / winter night. Each song on this album--predominantly 'Through a Glass Darkly,' 'Winter Light,' (think Bergman) and 'Miles to Go Before Sleep,'--are repetitive yet contain a substantial amount of chord arpeggios played on guitar and crystal-clear synth work: the two most important aspects of this album that make it a truly appreciated masterpiece floating under the radar in the atmospheric music scene. Each second of the 70 minutes this album contains is as breath-taking as it is intelligent both in theory and in thought. Expect to hear about this band more in the future...