Balmorhea

Named after an obscure town in western Texas situated far from Austin, where the band is based, Balmorhea has a sound that's the stuff of daydreams and contemplation in a place where the pace of life is slow but you can find the answers to all your questions if you know how to look. Anyone without a substantial knowledge of a broad expanse of twentieth-century music and its development will think this band sounds like what Sigur Rós has been doing lately, with a smidge less intensity. Rob Lowe plays piano as though he were channeling the spirit of the quiet lands where trains travel and never stop. Michael Muller's varied stringed instrumentation traces the linings of clouds and the gently swaying arcs of trees. The members of Balmorhea are not rockers — more like understated shamans.