I noticed David Grubbs' The Spectrum Between made its way onto some of last year's Worst and/or Most Disappointing Albums lists. Pitchfork served up a favorable review, but nothing so imperative that it warranted purchase or some form of semi-legal piracy. I have a soft spot for Gastr del Sol's Camoufleur, but I wouldn't call myself a fan. And in the interest of full disclosure, I found Grubbs' beloved The Thicket to be artfully dull. Bill Bradley-dull.

Last year, New Haven's 33.3 copped a Grubbsian stance on their Plays Music with predictably somnolent results. Town and Country's It All Has to Do with It treads the same abstract ground. Perhaps the era of detached music is passing. Sure, people bristle at Godspeed You Black Emperor!'s apocalyptic pomposity, but-- calculated or otherwise-- it beats the hell out of Town and Country's studied indifference. You may not like your emotional content spoonfed, but would you rather have it in abeyance? Simply unavailable. Town and Country make music to accompany cigarette-smoking and beard stroking-- it's to be, in a word, appreciated. This is not a particularly sophisticated observation but it seems that music designed to have a solely cognitive appeal must be so intellectually satisfying that the listener is not distracted by the absence of other aesthetic dimensions. Such music must be good to think, and this music isn't.

Truth be told, It All Has to Do with It is something of a one-trick pony: Drone. Rinse. Repeat. People will talk about texture, but it's just something to do to keep from turning the television on. It All Has to Do with It has virtually no percussion at all, making it a spectral array of plodding contrabass (two of them!), arty harmonium, muted trumpets and ultra-delicate acoustic guitars. The bells and vibes are obligatory garnishing, and the whole affair is shrill and ugly. The final track, "That Old Feeling," is the album's only promising piece. But the ten minutes of limpid, jazzy noise backed by a remarkably constant piercing drone (and followed by four minutes of screeching, aimless guitar) fail to excuse the prior 25 minutes of irritating drift.

It All Has to Do with It is constantly up in the air, lingering: virtually nothing that might suggest a theme, either musically or emotionally. The effect is singularly amazing: the music is so difficult to locate oneself in that you'll always find yourself outside of it, obstructed and pushed around by it. I had several minor epiphanies of how incredibly annoyed this music made me. But just because you're interrogating your threshold for aggravation doesn't necessarily mean you're in the presence of art. Like becoming aware of a buzzing fluorescent light, or a distant car alarm, the intellectual commitment doesn't stretch far beyond: Where is that coming from? When will it stop? And finally: why won't it stop?

-Brent S. Sirota