In the course of a Pitchfork writer's life, one is occasionally called on to review something that falls somewhat outside his or her area of musical expertise and typical listening fare. When this occurs, one is left with one of the following options:

1) Offer foggy synopsis of what the record sounds like and derisively dismiss it for its perceived inability to "rock."

2) Write a long-winded personal anecdote about something irrelevant like loss of virginity, high school, or that time I stole a bodice ripper from the local drug store, and try to abstractly relate that to feeling produced by said album.

3) Describe the music by negative comparison (e.g. "Well, it's not garage rock.")

4) Do some research, and offer drinks to local college radio station DJ who likes this kind of stuff in exchange for his informed opinion, then try to cultivate some appreciation for the music so as to not look like a total moron.

The trickiness of this dilemma is only exacerbated by Pitchfork's semi-official stance on music in this vein. You need only note that the Gas album Pop, a record I found equally mystifying and intimidating, made it onto the site's list of the 20 best records of 2000. So I made the choice any self-respecting coward would and went for option four. Now that all my cards are on the table here, let's trudge onward.

Chris Smith is Australian. He is/was a singer/songwriter. Everything on Map Ends has been previously released on vinyl in Australia, but nowhere else, and never before on CD. All Music Guide (apparently operating under an ironic reversal of option #3, see above) mysteriously identifies him as "power-pop" and further notes that "Map Ends will give audiences a good idea of his power-pop sound."

Map Ends is sort of a lush, ambient drone-- so much of a drone that I had an incredibly hard time following typical protocol and listening to it straight through without pause the first time I heard it. Every now and then, white noise, wind, and muffled voices of background radio are broken with vague instrumentation-- usually xylophones or toy pianos. Some of the songs, like the back-to-back "Fake Hand" and "Replacement," have moments of shoegazer-like feedback and resonant layering.

Fortunately for the short-attention-span'd, four of these tracks are less than six minutes long. The aforementioned "Replacement" (which I liked) weighed in at just over twelve minutes long, could have been edited to roughly half of its length without losing too much of its effect. And the "Captain, This Is It" (which, to me, sounds like hearing my old upstairs neighbors run the vacuum cleaner on the hardwood floor), with its 18+ minute runtime, helps to underscore a theory I have regarding self-indulgence and songs involving the word "Captain." It should be noted that my DJ friend/consultant disagrees with me, citing "Captain, This Is It" as among the album's high points. He also liked "Brazil," which I think sounds like the distant interstate from my backyard lightly amplified, but which he found appealingly scary.

I think what's done here is done well, and I respect the opinions of those whose advice I have taken while listening to this album. It's a stretch for me to recommend anything for which "extended, rhythmless drone" serves as a positive description, but those who like this sort of thing should likely have a go of it. I, in the meantime, will go about my business in unsophisticated bliss. Stay tuned for next week when I pretend to really amped up about listening to John Cage.

-Alison Fields, August 2nd, 2002