Citay - Dream Get Together

Though they're often lumped in with the freak-folk movement, there is something decidedly proggier about San Francisco’s Citay than, say, Devendra Banhart. With their third album the nebulous sextet take their cosmic noodling to another level. Before coming home to roost with an excellent, elongated take on Broadcast’s Tugboat, Dream Get Together is a trippy, riff heavy leviathan. The songs, though peppered with snippets of subtle harmonies, generally gravitate towards extended jams. Occasionally, they draw from Frisco contemporaries (see the perfectly chilled Mirror Kisses), but the balance is tilted towards the giants of 70s prog (Careful With That Hat and Hunter). Most tracks, no matter how gently they enter, don’t exit before packing in a wailing solo or two, but still there’s little self indulgence. No track outstays its welcome and the excellently deployed soft-loud dynamics help soften the progressive edges, lending Dream Get Together an accessibility not normally associated with the genre. [Finbarr Bermingham]