Pitchfork Forkcast: On Repeat: Phosphorescent: "A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise" [MP3/Stream]

On Repeat: Phosphorescent: "A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise" [MP3/Stream]

Matthew Houck, the Brooklynite behind Phosphorescent, is a rootsy singer-songwriter with a gothic sensibility and a way with a tune. But he also demonstrates an interest in pure sound. Stately countrified weepers dominated his 2005 album Aw Come Aw Wry, as dry production emphasized the Will Oldhamesque cracks in his voice. But then there were tracks like "Endless Pt. 2", which added Beach Boys-style harmonies and toyed with the structural conventions of song.

These latter inclinations move to the fore on his forthcoming Pride, his third full-length and first for the Dead Oceans label. Although a few tracks like "Cocaine Lights" proceed in a more orderly verse/chorus fashion, elsewhere Houck shows a pronounced bent for the abstract and ethereal. He's got that wild mercury sound working beautifully here on album opener "A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise", with its spaciousness, delicate, intertwining strands of voice, and general sense of looseness and possibility. "I'll be in the yard still taking pictures in the dark," he sings, his tone sounding like he's conversing with a ghost, and then the music cuts out and percussion drifts away slowly like chains clattering down the hall.