In the beginning was the sound, and the sound was with God, and the sound was God. And the sound became flesh, and the flesh became song.

So goes the story of music, beginning with the first time an early primate experienced funkentelechy pounding a stick against a tree, to the last time an avant-garde "composer" set up some mics and taped room hum. Songs are shaped sound, forcing away their origins as ordered cacophony. Perhaps nowhere else is this more evident than in rock music, where songs structure the noise and noise seasons the songs, without either ever actually gaining the upper hand. A good case in point is Polvo, who began as a somewhat atmospheric pop/punk band and evolved, over time, into an endlessly more abstract combo.

One of Polvo's late song titles, "Rock Post-Rock," provides a picture of their modus operandi: though the band incorporated many of the out-there moves embraced by the PoRo crowd, they essentially remained a two-guitar/bass/drum combo, playing compositions with beginnings, middles and ends. They weren't above bleaching a track with feedback, but they were equally shameless about exploiting a killer hook when it served their purposes.

Polvo has long since gone the way of the dinosaurs, but the struggle between intelligibility and anarchy continues ever onward. From Guided by Voices' adventures in recording grot to the Chicago post-rock posse's atmospheric escapades, noise and other non-song experiments have gone to battle with popcraft time and time again. Tossing his hat into this embattled ring once again comes Ash Bowie, former standard bearer in Polvo and now the single, solitary contributor to the Libraness project. And guess what? Ain't nothing changed.

Due to its homespun beginnings-- Bowie's been woodshedding this stuff for the last seven years-- Yesterday... and Tomorrow's Shells is more organic than Polvo, who were fond of clanging mechanics. But the noise/order dialectic is evident here in a very different way. Libraness songs seem victims of decay more than deliberate subversion, as reverbed guitars and harsh distortion cloud a set of what could potentially be quite winsome folk songs.

After starting with one of those found-sound intros that are rapidly becoming epidemic these days (in this case, I'll hazard a guess that it was recorded in a subway station), the record kicks off with "Face on Backwards." The closest thing to a rocker on the record, the track subverts what could have been a killer riff with screaming distortion. The effect is pleasant, surprisingly, as the furious interference forces the listener to work for the song, making them hunt for the coherence underneath all the grinding.

Shortly thereafter, Yesterday... metamorphoses into a far mellower mood. A lot of the stuff here bears a spiritual resemblance to modern Microphones releases, as wobbly tempos and surprising arrangements (are those bagpipes on "24 Hrs?") go to war with charismatic vocals and jangling acoustic guitars. But ultimately, the pleasure on Yesterday... and Tomorrow's Shells is the way noise and songcraft work together, rather than battling. It's nice to see these two old enemies cooperating for a change.

-Sam Eccleston