Silver Tongued Sisyphus is a 20 minute EP which is a teaser for a new full length album which is due out in "early 2008", according to the Kranky Records website. Cloudland Canyon is the duo of Kip Uhlhorn and Simon Wojan, a couple of dudes who are obviously indebted to the influence of early Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Temple, leavened with classic pysch touches.

It's strange that the last Kranky release I reviewed, White Rainbows' Prism of Eternal Now had some similar influences, yet a totally different approach to rendering them. These guys take a maximalist approach to their ambient drone meanderings within these two long pieces. They toss the kitchen sink into their recordings, yet temper them with enough care that they don't come off as cluttered.

The EP is also informed by the pre/post-whatever of This Heat, through spiky, disjointed samples and guitar scrabbles. It's possible there's no conscious attempt to evoke those Brixtonions though, since their music was a logical extension of Faust and the prog-rock of the day, but there's no question it's there for the hearing. Silver Tongued Sisyphus doesn't quite break away from its influences enough to make it a startling, ingenuous statement. But it's plenty entertaining, and it certainly leaves me intrigued enough to want to hear their next effort.