Horns of Happiness began as the lo-fi pop side project of Impossible Shapes' Aaron Deer, whose 2004 release A Sea as a Shore featured an array of instruments delivering a somewhat uneven group of songs. The addition of drummer Shelley Harrison, however, helps to make Would I Find Your Psychic Guideline more engaging. The six songs on this 12"-only release are hypnotic, cyclical affairs, relying on dense, fuzzy organ drones and simple, driving drumbeats. The arrangements are often simple-- typically featuring no more than two or three parts-- but the results are far from boring or generic.
Organ and drums are the most prominent instruments utilized here-- although keyboard flourishes, strings, and guitars find their way in as well. Deer's pure, clean vocals are the perfect counter to the eerie, robotic sonics, but they're only featured on about half of the songs. As a result they become part of the mix in a unique way-- not by demanding your attention, despite their clarity, but by snaking their way through the tracks.
"Dowser Hunters", the first instrumental in the every-other-song pattern of instrumental-to-vocal tracks, is like a dreamy circus theme, with a bouncy rhythm and low-mixed drums that combine to make it seem both jovial and creepy all at once. Unfortunately, it's difficult to identify the songs by their titles, as there seem to be six tracks, yet the tracklisting only includes five titles. Which of these six is the untitled one is a mystery. However, title or no, track five-- with ethereal swirling keyboard tones and quiet banjo plucking-- is the stronger of the record's other two instrumentals. The song lacks percussion, so the bass and keys wander without aim in a dizzying fashion.
The album's brevity and vinyl-only release are its two biggest problems. Even though the hand-printed cover is nice (albeit fairly plain), I can't help but wonder if a CD release would fare better. The six songs on this EP top out at just over 20 minutes, meaning just as you're getting into the mesmerizing rhythm, it's over. Deer brought the layers and excess of A Sea as a Shore down to the basics, but now I find myself longing for more each time I listen.
