here have all the sleepers gone? Thanks to the computer, the internet and the dork, music information (and often music itself) gets passed around faster than a baby on Michael Jackson’s balcony, and whether you attribute it to opportunity or to vigilance, there are no more surprises, no more unheard-of bands, no more albums that sneak under the radar. Trading communities, label reps, sleazy webzines, bloggers -- they all contribute to a wealth of pre-official release knowledge which amounts to no more than hype and which robs people of the pure, innocent joy that accompanies a first listen. Can you remember the slow, warm shock of popping in a disc you have not heard word one about and having that disc become one of your favourites for the year? If so -- or if not, I’m not sure which is more relevant -- turn off your computer, lay still and listen to How Animals Move.


How this album has gone ignored in the months since its release is beyond me. Not only does it bear a Thrill Jockey tattoo -- which is still enough to cause at least a few thousand people to automatically shit their pants -- it is also the work of a man who in recent years has garnered praise for his writing and production work with PJ Harvey, Goldfrapp, Giant Sand and the Eels. Enough with Turn On the Bright Lights, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Fantastic Damage, why didn’t someone bludgeon us with praise for How Animals Move three months before it came out? It more than deserves it.


A tender, imaginative collection of disparate songs, How Animals Move is less an album than a steady stream of wonderful, unpretentious surprises. Parish’s music is eclectic, genuine, expert and always capable of expressing or sharing joy. Sometimes that joy hides deep within sad, dusky soundscapes or behind plaintive violin solos, but over the course of the album’s 40 minutes, not once does it disappear.


The album occupies three basic spaces: sparse and mournful, prickly and lush, and rollicking, but no two songs that might fit into any of the three categories sound the same. “Absolute Beauty is an Absolute Curse”, “Lord It’s a Happy Land” and “El Marreon” could all be considered sparse and mournful, but the lone violin of “Absolute Beauty” -- its sound, its grace -- will never be confused with the Fender Rhodes massage of “Lord It’s a Happy Land” or with the southwestern tears coaxed out by “El Merreon”.


Thanks to a great song sequence and dense, tasteful arrangements, nothing is lost when the album changes gears. The mid-tempo material, responsible for the least distinctive of all the songs here, is an intriguing blend of horns, laid back drumming, piano and guitars that teeter between delicate and assertive. “Western Airways” is a comfortable, breezy glide; “Shrunken Man” could be a Howe Gelb song held underwater; “Stable Life” is a cloudy, tasteful mesh of shadowed vocals, strings and jittery snare drum. It’s the raucous material, though, that holds the most surprises and provides the most thrilling rewards. The title track steadily expands from horn-led stride to a bliss-heavy collision of crash cymbals, sliding guitars and strings that doesn’t fully resolve until the similarly rousing next track, “The Florida Recount”. “Bernadette” and “Spanish Girls” perform the same one-two stunt, with “Bernadette”’s final blast leading into the sax-heavy thud of “Spanish Girls”. The blue ribbon, however, goes to “Airplane Blues”, a sex-as-flying blues romp sung by none other than Polly Harvey. Horny, smoky and verging on silly, “Airplane Blues” hammers home that little j-word one last time before banging the album to a close.


Low-key and rich, How Animals Move is a fantastic reminder that music does exist outside the hype/hyperbole indie-chat rumour mill, that amidst a garish, deafening orgy one can still utter a whisper or exhale a secret and be heard. With no trends to tie it to and no package tours with which to sell it, How Animals Move is an album that only needs to exist to be great.