Belmondo Free Returns

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On 2001’s the Sleepy Strange, Athens, Georgia’s Japancakes pioneered the concept of ambient country music. John Neff’s pedal steel playing was the instrumental album’s strongest ‘voice’ – an elastic, hypnotic drone rooted in an Americana-styled dreamscape, gently pulling the listener into the band’s watercolor imagery. The group’s approach remains suitably restrained for Belmondo – after all, it’s part of Darla’s Bliss-Out ambient series – but they’ve shifted focus away from the pedal steel. It’s still a significant part of the band’s sound, but it doesn’t carry the record, and it’s often so heavily drenched in effects that you’ll barely recognize it; even at it’s most obvious (during ‘Always Stuck with Leaving’ and ‘Duluth 75’), it sounds woozier than usual. 2002.