Do Make Say Think make music to, for lack of a better word, decompress to-- instrumental music that has a canny sense of tension and release, and knows when to build and when to recede. Mostly, though, it's music that doesn't put any pressure on you like the rest of your day does. Coming home from a crap day of work or school or running errands or whatever it is you do, this is absolutely perfect music to put on and space out to. In certain ways, it fits Brian Eno's definition of ambient perfectly-- you can put it on let it color the mood of a room, or you can sit attentively and listen; the music doesn't care. In short, it's easy to relax to, and yet still maintains an air of intelligence.
Despite having four action verbs in their name, Do Make Say Think never really seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere. Their music unfolds at a leisurely pace (those weaned exclusively on shorter-form music may even find it a bit boring), and often even fails to really arrive at a logically perceived destination, instead choosing to take a little side path that the musicians find more interesting. The result is a highly unpredictable album of constantly shifting textures that feels fresh even after several listens in a row.
The Toronto five-piece actually opens the album with some of its most taut music, building "Classic Noodlanding" like a gathering storm for a full two minutes over fervently tapped cymbals. Then, at the two-minute mark, drummers James Payment and Dave Mitchell burst into a rock groove, setting the other instruments free. Guitars and horns mingle on the buoyant undercurrent, and by the song's end, the band sounds almost ebullient.
"End of Music" benefits from a similar change in propulsion at its midpoint, moving from a slow, keyboard-dominated crawl to an open gallop, with guitars blazing in the foreground. The dual drums augment each other quite unselfishly and prove one of the band's best assets. "White Light Of" contains yet another amazing drum part, this time supporting bassist/trumpeter Charles Spearin and guest Brian Cram's deft horn arrangement and minimal melody. This finally breaks down into a wet scape of sparsely strummed, tremeloed guitars recalling Bark Psychosis' "Scum" or Talk Talk's "Myrrhman."
Those guitars return for the album's finest track, the transcendent "Reitschule." Wandering guitar melodies criss-cross each other before the drums enter on an unexpected beat. Distorted guitars pile up on top of it all until a final, brief buildup, which opens into a dubby passage with a bassline Doug McCombs would be proud to call his own. The process is repeated, this time with horns providing counterpoint to the urgently strummed guitars. The breakdown after the second climax leaves the bass alone with a sparse, clean guitar for accompaniment before a yearning trumpet line enters. Instruments are slowly added, and the process again repeats, each time following a different permutation on a similar concept.
The album's other three tracks offer further variations on the band's basic sound, from the muted tones and almost Hood-like pulse of "Chinatown" to guest Tamara Wlliamson's stirring wordless vocal contributions to the aptly titled "Soul and Onward." Closer "Anything for Now" features some beautifully interwoven guitar and organ over a downright breezy undercarriage, before flattening out into a warm drone. The album concludes with skittering dub guitars swelling over muted static-- the type of ambient texture that you can immerse yourself in fully.
If you haven't achieved full decompression by that point, you must be incredibly high strung. & Yet & Yet proves to be Do Make Say Think's most fluid and satisfying album yet, masterfully conscripting the slow-burning dub of their 1998 self-titled debut to the service of the jazz-inflected textures of 2000's Goodbye Enemy Airship, the Landlord Is Dead. God only knows what the future holds for this band, but if their current direction is any indication, things are looking glaringly bright.
