Future Museums – An Absence [ video premiere ]
5.3.16 by Bobby Power

Since 2010, Neil Lord has steered his Future Museums project through a number of limited edition releases that mine the most psyched-out corners of modern ambient, drone, and lo-fi. While the band has sifted through a number of members, including Justin Sweatt (Xander Harris) for a spell, the Austin-based project recently settled itself into a comfy trio, featuring Lord, Maxwell Parrott,and Nicolas Nadeau. Now, the trio follows up its recent run of tapes on Fire Talk (including the excellent Tapestry Of Time and Terrain / Pleasure Cruise double-tape opus) with “An Absence”, a new 37-minute EP released on Mirror Universe. To celebrate, the label has put together a snazzy new video shot and directed by T.C. Johnson, who also does live visuals with the band. Musically, the 12-minute teaser finds Future Museums ambling through vibrantly desolate and deprecated locales, equipped with a modest set of effects pedals and a lethargic but hopeful drum machine. Landing somewhere between Windy & Carl’s epic, melancholic drifts and the band’s own peripheral sense of optimism, the trio finds a deep and inherent sense of beauty in the lowliest of places. Visually, Johnson parallels Future Museums’ aural lament, contrast stark and bluntly natural scenes of rustic decay with analog infidelities for a hypnotic and calmly disorienting, altogether captivating, series of meditations.

“An Absence” is available now from MU’s Bandcamp for digital / cassette preorder. 100 physical copies will be available May 20th.  Do yourself a favor and pick up the label’s “Austin, TX power trio” bundle of tapes, featuring this EP and new jams by Single Lash and Slow Pulse.