Pitchfork

A lonesome trail of warm, bleating saxophone and the faintly audible, clammy click of keys opens Brooklyn-based ensemble Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice's fifth proper full-length, Gipsy Freedom. As smoky melodies form from the curling, resonant notes, Heidi "White Diamond" Diehl's theatrical vocals declare, "Peace is a phoenix right out of the sky." Each word, delivered with Diehl's unique character and emphasis, drops like a pin through the mist of separated notes, pulling them together into a melee of skeletal structures.

Gipsy Freedom is mostly configured from mosaics of folk-influenced guitar and a series of other less distinct instruments. But like all of WWVV's recordings to date-- the group shares the present noise/experimental scene's dedication to prolificacy, having produced a striking number of cassettes and CDRs in addition to their more widely available releases-- Gipsy Freedom departs from the band's previous work. The acoustic loveliness of The Flood, for example, is less articulated; instead, the band takes strides toward broken and fractured jazz, which frees them to experiment with a broader range of space and sound.

An instrumental wash of bass and flute provides the foundation for improv track "Hey Pig He Stole My Sound"; it's quickly embellished with the rickety twinkle of bells and clattering cymbals. "Don't Love the Liar", perhaps the most traditionally structure song here, forms around a bony kickdrum and prowling bassline. Perhaps best serving as an example of what Wooden Wand choose not to do on this album, the track flickers out less than two minutes in. Of course, there's also ample evidence of the band's strong roots in noise music (original member Tovah O'Rourke comprises half of Dead Machines with husband John Olsen of Wolf Eyes): "Dead End Days with Caesar", though not of Prurient/Wolf Eyes school of ear-splitting torture, is a 20-odd-minute avant-garde jamboree, thick with jaunty rhythms and contact mic explosions.

Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice have managed to maintain a delightful sense of mystery thus far: From their website's far-flung but not entirely convincing biography (apparently, their history embraces Czech runaways, traveling carnivals, and childhood literary prodigies) to their quasi-mythical stage names (Satya Sai Kali Jehovah, Glucas Nonhorse Crane, etc.), the band clearly enjoys building their mystique, thriving in an ambiguous, hypnotic make-believe world. But here they've finally broken the essential barrier that many of their noise-dabbling Brooklynite peers have yet to penetrate: Gipsy Freedom is the first release on which the group's music is as fascinating, enigmatic, and multifaceted as their shadowy personas.