[4/5] If you're among those who (rightfully) think Tee Pee Records is purely a hard-chuggin' stoner-rock factory, Cloudland Canyon will shatter your assumptions. The group's debut album, Requiems Der Natur 2002-2004, is a starry-eyed psych-rock opus with mystical aspirations and a Ph.D. in minimalist-drone composition. It's as if CC (a.k.a. American/Panthers guitarist Kip Uhlhorn and German Simon Wojan) have read the world's great religious tomes and studied drones under masterly minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley, and then created an album reflecting those heady experiences. Through time-tested tricks such as cyclical chants, vaporous keyboard emissions and curiously tuned guitars spiraling into infinity, CC find fresh, exciting ways to trance you the hell out. "Carolina Foxtail/Sea Chirp" embodies the group's sparkling split personality: It starts like a sentimental, blissful Velvet Underground ballad-albeit one laced with distorted Mellotron and guitars-and then abruptly shifts into a drum-heavy, tribal processional with massed, chiming riffs and warped kazoos that form a humid haze worthy of early Mercury Rev. And that's the most conventional track on the disc. (TEE PEE) Dave Segal
 Official Website: http://www.teepeerecords.com
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