Nobody: Pacific Drift: Western Water Music Vol. 1

Downtempo electronica knows the ways of strip-mining, but it rarely trades its usual jazz and funk sources for anything that could rightfully be called rock music. While Nobody sounds like a far cry from a feverish rock fan, his psychedelic wandering tips back to the baroque '60s aims of Brian Wilson and contemporaries hidden away in various indie-rock pockets. Chris Gunst from cosmic-country throwback Beachwood Sparks sings on Pacific Drift: Western Water Music Vol. 1's "Porpoise Song," a woozy psych-rock ode that sounds otherworldly and homespun. "Images Of April" is a cover of Pearls Before Swine, a '60s band whose folkie weirdness eases into a trilling ambient-house treatment. Reference points haunt all of Nobody's songs, but no part of Pacific Drift stays still long enough to get tagged and written off as derivative. What makes Nobody hard to pin down also makes him hard to recognize in the swirly din, but he plays a good castaway as Pacific Drift trades up from early Stereolab rips to the increasingly murky soundscapes that follow. "After The Summer Hits" sounds like Boards Of Canada left out in the sun, while "Interlude 2/Sioux's Rain Part III (Insect Trust Dub)" evokes DJ Shadow with its brooding drum breaks and twangy guitar clips. Nobody's rhythms never run higher than midtempo, but they're generous in range. "Electro-Acoustic" laces its shoegazer guitar with anxious electro thwack, and "Psilo-Cycling (Trip 'Round The Block)" pairs idyllic acoustic strum with the symphonic echo beat of The Ronettes' "Be My Baby." Parts of Pacific Drift are a bit too effective in lulling themselves to listless distraction, but the whole of it makes for electronica uniquely in tune with that old notion of the music of the spheres.