It took me a few listens to “Rude to Rile,” the first brick released from Horse Feather’s forthcoming Kill Rock Stars debut House With No Home, to realize that the song features any percussion. While many of the band’s contemporaries (Iron and Wine, I’m looking at you) have at times somewhat awkwardly incorporated West African rhythms in an attempt to blanket inferior songwriting in a wider instrumental palette, Justin Ringle has wisely upped their sound without jumping the shark—and it’s still just as beautiful as ever.

Ringle’s songs have always sounded a bit like Arthur Russel’s non-disco but still cello-centered tunes, like if Russel traded his Lower East Side heritage to spend the dreary winter months in the Pacific Northwest. Here Heather Broderick’s cello aptly fills in the space left open by the lack of a proper drum kit; it jumps and swirls and gallops around Ringle’s voice and equally rhythmic guitar picking. Still, everything is kept relatively simple; instead of bringing in a whole orchestra (or the Portland Cello Project) Horse Feather’s manage a full sound with just three musicians. Each accent given to “Rude to Rile” is subtle but necessary, elementary but nearly hidden. The gentle rhythmic undercurrent is so well infused into the song that it just sort of becomes part of it. In a time where so much of the music I hear is oversaturated and, well, cloying, it’s encouraging to hear something so restrained. House With No Home is just that lovely.

Download audio file (Rudetorile.mp3)

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Photo courtesy of Horse Feathers