Barrel is a string trio composed of Alison Blunt on violin, Ivor Kallin on violin and viola, and Hannah Marshall on cello. There's quite a bit of goofy humor in evidence here, from the group's name ("because we scrape"), to the wacky liner notes (signed, the Hipster Uncle), to the music itself, shot through occasionally by cartoonish vocal interjections. Not to worry, the emphasis here seems to be on fun.

We begin with a slow chord fading up, and then are dropped into a stew of string pop and slice, which dove-tails into some awfully beautiful melodiousness. The sound reminds me of the way flocks of birds all seem to be able to turn simultaneously. There doesn't seem to be a leader or "main" instrument, they're all just sounding together, halting or pausing all at the same time, or so it seems, and shifting effortlessly from a consonant chord to slightly off-kilter melody-with-accompaniment to all hell's broken loose free-for-all.

The weird knot that begins growing about 9 minutes into ""Rigwiddie Snauchle Strikes Again In Style" really grabs the ear, and is one of my favorite moments. The stop/start, collective chording that opens "Soft Porn And Hard Cheese" is worth the price of admission, and when it ends a mere 1:49 later, you may want to start it over and study it more closely. A primer of Barrel's approach in microcosm, it shows clearly how their music grows out of a collective sensibility, a sort of group mind in action. The cover artwork of superimposed drawings in red and black also keenly illustrates the modus operandi, tendrils and filaments sprouting, tangling, joining, separating.