There's a long history of record labels being identified with a certain sound. In jazz, Blue Note was known for the funky hard-bop of Art Blakey and Horace Silver, while Impulse! cultivated a roster of avant-garde explorers like John and Alice Coltrane and Archie Shepp. In the indie rock universe, those who buy something on K or Kill Rock Stars can usually depend on hearing some amateurish post-punk, while Kranky remains the home of ambient dreamers. But Perishable, the label begun initially to release Red Red Meat's debut album, is developing two identities: a clearing house for the rhythm experiments of the Chicago instrumental scene (Him, Drumhead, Out in Worship) and the keepers of the pawnshop folk-blues flame, as previously burned by oRSo, Loftus, and now Sin Ropas.

That Sin Ropas sounds like a Red Red Meat side project-- complete with outdated drone machines, banjos, acoustic guitars and abrasive percussion-- is no surprise: it's essentially the work of RRM's Tim Hurley. Hurley has always been the second songwriter in Red Red Meat. He contributed "Airstream Driver" to There's a Star Above the Manger Tonight, and sang a couple of songs on the Loftus record. And he's always been more about mood than melody. Indeed, while few of these compositions would hold up well if separated from the complicated production that characterizes the work of this collective, they still hit with all the impact of a shovel to the face, due to a Hurley's talent for instrumental nuance and shading.

Hurley's grizzled voice (which bears a passing resemblance to an exhausted Neil Young) lacks depth of expression, but holds a certain downcast sincerity that suits these songs well. And in the end, this album seems to be about the finished recording, anyway-- you won't be humming the tune to "Snakes in Shoes," but you'll remember the bouncy slap of the snare drum.

A few of these tracks are instrumental, including the almost Calexico-like "I Found Your Teeth." It combines wonderfully controlled guitar feedback, melodica and upright bass to conjure a vivid scene of some booze-ravaged hero prowling the warehouses down by the wharf, in search of a beautiful woman best forgotten. From the tender metallic drone of "You'll Take the Knife Out" to the spacy, down-the-hole weirdness of "Rabbit Dream," this is cinematic music with force, and a worthy addition to Perishable's strong catalog.

-Mark Richard-San