“Golden Grin” begins with a hush that one could attribute to wind whispering through autumn trees, and with Benoît Pioulard’s (the mom de guerre of PDX transplant Tom Meluch) penchant for the natural world and interest in recording and then sampling the sounds around him, it might actually be the case. Granted, he feeds his guitar chords through cassette recorders, so maybe the guiding sound’s source will remain a mystery—much like the age-old conundrum “how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie pop?” The song features gentle percussion, layered vocals and a melody that dances like light through trees. Dropping this past Tuesday, Temper is Meluch’s second disc for Chicago label Kranky, and the placement of “Golden Grin” as the fourth track shows that Meluch doesn’t just know his plants; he understands how to sequence a record, too.

Download audio file (GoldenGrin.mp3)

Links:
Benoît Pioulard official site
Benoît PioulardSpace
Kranky

Photo by Nilina Mason-Campbell