The Man Felt an Iron Hand Grasp Him by the Hair, at the Nape. Not One Hand, a Hundred Hands Seized Him, Each by the Hair, and Tore Him Head to Foot, the Way You Tear Up a Sheet of Paper, Into Hundreds of Little Pieces

This is the first album by post-rock instrumental super-group, Lumen. Made up of members from San Francisco bands, Tarentel and A Minor Forest, The Man Felt... is an incredible album of dark contemplation fusing accordion, guitar, organ, and doom.

The fine instrumentalists on this recording include Jeffrey Rosenberg, Andee Connors, Jeffrey Kane, and David Blei. Some of the pieces are swirling, carnavalesque tangos through warm organics, mellow psychedelic fodder, but calm and unlike what the title of the album may suggest, rarely sinister. The musicians clearly have an earnest control over their instruments, reaching to the same collective heights reached on Do Make Say Think's & yet & yet and Yume Bitsu's the Golden Vessyl of Sound. They are gleaming the cube, so to speak--musically. Transmitting images through the evocation of a mesh of sound, which really is what this whole post-rock (or whatever it begs to be called) thing is all about.

The title of the album, which comes from the opening paragraph of a story in Italo Calvino's Difficult Loves, The Mine Field amazingly, fits on the spine of the cd cover, a dark blue presentation of icy power lines, ominous and sharp, ready to cut. The album is not as dark as the cover, but it often comes close. Under the power lines is upturned soil, looking dead.

I recommend seeking this album out from Temporary Residence records, there really is nothing like it as a whole. Parts of it may sometimes remind the listener of Aerial M/Papa M, Tarentel, Godspeed you black emperor!, Directions in Music, Tortoise (Millions Now Living Will Never Die-era) and even Pullman or John Fahey.

1. I
2. II
3. III
4. IV
5. V
6. VI
7. VII
8. VIII