Bands like Windy & Carl and Stars of the Lid are on quest for the perfect drone. They are purists, continually honing their craft and chipping away at the excess, going on the assumption that a lean and efficient music machine is better equipped to tune into the Ultimate Vibration. These methods have led both bands toward a polished and pleasant sound, relatively far afield from their coarse four-track beginnings. And there's no doubting the efficacy of this refinement, as Consciousness and The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid were excellent albums that ranked with each band's finest.

And then there's Sunroof!. Where other bands see drone as a state of relaxation in which the listener finds himself in harmony with his surroundings, Sunroof! channels the raw, unknowable patterns of nature into a music that's dense, harsh, loud and endless. Miles removed from the soothing hum, these monolithic sound constructions seem hacked from the world of ambient noise with a dull hatchet. They're crude, shapeless, and drooping with stray connective tissue. And yet, in their own way, they're also very beautiful.

Before we get into the music on Bliss, a little background. Sunroof! come from a music community seemingly designed with the obsessive music fan in mind. Those looking for an obscure psychedelic noise scene populated by enigmatic characters prone to issuing scores of hyper-limited records to pad a massive and completely unmanageable discography need look no further than the Skullflower. The band was formed in rural England in 1985, and members went on to perform and record in various configurations under the names Ramleh, Consumer Electronics, Ax, Novatron, Ascension, and JFK, and that's just for starters. Sunroof! is the name ex-Skullflower guitarist Mathew Bower now uses for his solo projects (he previously released albums under the name Total). The 2xCD Bliss is actually the second album released by Sunroof! in 2001. The first was the vinyl-only Sad Frog Wind, which featured two side-long compositions full of guitar feedback, synthesizer oscillations, and assorted bells and chimes. It was an impressive record, but Bliss is more diverse, and ultimately, packs a bigger punch.

The first two tracks make up one long piece bearing the intriguing title "Columbine Kisses." It begins with a half-second of bass rumble and then a cheap, tinny drum machine taps out a wobbly rhythm, seeming somehow feeble and out of place next to the drone. Waves of feedback eventually submerge the rhythm box, and yet it remains barely audible a few leagues below the drone, managing to mark the time amid the relentless noise. Though the track will strike some as difficult listening, Sunroof! brilliantly walks the tightrope between noise and drone music proper; Bliss never comes close to Merzbow territory (upping the overall playability), but always maintains an abrasive edge that keeps the music firmly in the foreground.

"Gold Carnation Legacy" is one of a few tracks built around the kind of oscillating synth drone that anchored Spacemen 3's epic "Suicide." The fluttering tones accelerate and decelerate unpredictably, and woven through the spaces are bowed strings and guitars that sound like whale songs. "Distoria" emphasizes percussion and unorthodox guitar technique (one noise might be an electric guitar being sawed in half, another guitar is struck to sound like a series of bells), revealing the strong influence of the Indian raga on Bower's music. "The Blue Sky of China" is even more overt in this respect, coaxing the long, winding melody lines of a sitar into a bed of distortion.

"Bells" is the rare slice of tranquility on the first disc of Bliss, as comparatively tame guitar feedback is sculpted into what could be an aural essay on the healing properties of sunlight. The shorter second disc of Bliss comes a bit closer to evoking its title. "Dirty Joke from Outer Space" is a collection of bubbly synth oscillations mixed with bird sounds, and when sheets of feedback ultimately rise in the mix, they're relaxed and welcoming. "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" serves to highlight the homespun nature of the Sunroof! project, as the voice of a child near the microphone talks and sings along with the extended tones.

This track, like many others throughout Bliss, begins and ends abruptly. While this is probably due to the rudimentary nature of the recording environment, these jarring transitions give the illusion that these pieces actually go on forever, and that the listener just happened to drop in on them for a few minutes. I like to think that somewhere in the world, at this very moment, another Sunroof! drone is raging. And I can only hope there's a tape machine nearby to capture it.

-Mark Richard-San, February 7th, 2002