Recently, the flagship of Dave Eggers' growing literary empire, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, took the interesting step of tapping They Might Be Giants to compose music inspired by the magazine's content, a CD of which they included in each copy. The people at Absalom Recordings have taken this a step further by eliminating all that unnecessary ironic print, leaving us with a subscription-based series of EPs by independent musicians.

Songs: Ohia's Howler is the first issue, as it were, to be followed every other month by the Czars, Howe Gelb, the Baptist Generals, Johnny Dowd and Calexico. The one-track, 3" disc comes in a square cardboard gatefold sleeve the size of a beer coaster. But you probably wouldn't want to use it as such, since the cover is an eerie print of a creepy, Edvard Munch-inspired face that would probably freak you out after a couple of drinks.

The music tries to do the same, but even the best horror movies lose their edge after multiple viewings. Having heard last year's haunting Ghost Tropic, this EP ceases to raise my blood pressure. "Howler" is likewise spare and very, er... patient, but the song lacks authenticity. It sounds as though singer/songwriter Jason Molina has kept the same songwriting technique from his last full-length, but has relocated from deep within a tribal rainforest to the back of a deserted toy store in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

That line would be a reference to the cheap, one-note toy synthesizer bursts that provide the song's backbone. And the baby that giggles two-thirds of the way through the 13-minute track. The rest is the same: a distant, reverberated guitar and Will Oldham's-- I mean, Jason Molina's broken, lonesome voice. Impossible to love, and impossible to hate, "Howler" is interesting only for the concept behind it.

-Ryan Kearney