New York DJ, visual artist, and musician
Scott Mou
debuted his long-running solo project
Queens
with first album
End Times
.
Mou
had already toured the U.S. as
and done multiple collaborations with
Panda Bear
under the moniker
Jane
by the time the woolen, dreamy textures of
arrived in 2013. Foggy clouds of looping guitar-based compositions weave in and out of
's airy vocals, sometimes a floating falsetto and other times a detached, watery presence beneath the hissy waves of sound. A far cry from the electronic sounds of his DJ sets,
encapsulates the alienated isolation of
Jandek
's early morning confusions and the vividly remembered lucid dream pop of
Grouper
, and hits on the same delicate balance of repetition and disruption of cycles that lies at the core of the best work by
Durutti Column
,
Flying Saucer Attack
, and
. Cavernous tracks like "Here Comes the Snow" and "Yellow Pages" make emotionally enormous impressions even while barely announcing themselves coming or going. ~ Fred Thomas