Pitchfork

Successful art is as rooted in luck as it is in proven prowess, and sometimes homegrown projects can be just as powerful as million-man productions. No matter how many work hours are ultimately logged manipulating records and tweaking songs into perfect shapes from black leather studio chairs with sweaty-fingered engineers clutching knobs, the odd, unmediated moment of sonic serendipity can never be completely discounted: Nonesense Goes Mudslide, the first solo outing from Holopaw drummer Michael Johnson, is heavy with a kind of accidental grace that simply can't be manually inspired. Packed with peculiar, homemade twists and charmingly bewildered lyrics, the album is a wildly spontaneous and nicely composed platter of sound.

Holopaw's self-titled debut was so soft and organic it almost felt edible; the band's yawning pedal steel, swampy electronics, and brisk acoustic strums established a crooked kind of Americana, something imminently more complex than the fetishized, backwards-country yelping of their contemporaries. Nonsense Goes Mudslide opts for a slightly less nostalgic turn, though, pairing Johnson's pert, friendly vocals with quirky electronics and fragile percussion, eschewing earnest acoustic laments in favor of perverse ideological lessons. Still, despite the obvious departures, there's a looseness to the record that mimics, however inadvertently, Holopaw's cowed, scrappy elegance: Each of Johnson's disparate components are laced tightly together, yet Nonsense still continually threatens to collapse on itself, as if any moment could bring the inevitable release of cymbals suddenly popping off their stands and rolling around the room, microphones spontaneously dissembling, and synthesizers shooting open, angular bits of black and white plastic rocketing in every direction.

Johnson is nothing if not immensely resourceful, and Nonsense Goes Mudslide is riddled with archaic-sounding pops and snippets of found sound: a phone rings (and rings), someone clears their throat, water rushes, rain trickles, tapes crackle, taut strings bow in and out. Meanwhile, Johnson's sweet, meandering vocals are interrupted by groaning synthesizers and creaky beats. Opener "Faulty Family" is a twinkling, sprightly song built around an innocuous recorder line; zaps and claps rise and fall in the background, crafting a bizarre bedroom symphony that always remains surprisingly subtle. "And Now, The Sequel" features a synth line drowned in fuzz and plenty of giant drumming; "The Staring Contest" (Johnson routinely provides the audio for Staremaster, a Florida-based professional staring contest which has since spawned both a documentary and a national tour) is a fleeting splash of spectral, drowning keys. "The Natives Going Under" pits Johnson-in-falsetto against plucked guitar and a lone trumpet swell, before abruptly descending into the throes of quasi-tribal drumbeat and spacy, vaguely psychedelic vocals.

Johnson's compositions are quick and impossible to map on paper, flitting relentlessly between styles, tempos, and sounds, a vaguely manic swarm of noise and melody. The resulting songs are disorienting, but lovingly so: like being blindfolded and led around by your best friend. With Holopaw plotting a spring tour with labelmate Iron and Wine, and a new record expected soon, it seems unlikely that Johnson's private experiments will see the exposure they deserve, but Nonsense Goes Mudslide's relative obscurity is an essential part of its charm: lock your front door, turn up the volume, and play every item in your house until you're officially part of the fun.