I like making movies and watching them. And even though the amount of attention I pay to music and sound is unparalleled to virtually everything else in my life, it's not often that I cease to create visuals along with it, whether I'm receiving them through my eyes or my mind. When I hear music, it almost always invokes imagery. Sometimes the imagery is vague-- perhaps colors or shapes, floating in the distance or surrounding me. Sometimes the imagery is so vivid that I can describe it detail by detail, linking to it either memories of the past or something altogether new that I have yet to see materialized outside of my thoughts. Other times, only pieces of these pictures can be translated into language, and sometimes none at all.

Most of my favorite music does this to me. It's this kind of music that fits my definition of "cinematic." This description doesn't limit itself so much to the new age of dramatic, orchestral, instrumental "film-rock," such as Mogwai and Godspeed You Black Emperor!, although they often apply, being traditionally cinematic in scope as they are. It's only limited to the sounds that create such pictures for me. This is the term I most closely associate to perfection in sound. Any genre can create its own brand of cinematic music. Each person's specific musical definition of the term varies with his or her taste and personality, of course, but certainly, it exists for everyone somewhere.

With the title track of their debut LP, Goldenwest, Ester Drang have created a truly cinematic song in my own personal sense of the term. It begins with a cyclical chord progression on the piano, looping upon itself, as subtle hisses creep into the mix. A pounding bass drum announces itself, and suddenly, organic beats start and stop without warning, with different meters and tempos each time, always fitting the rhythm of the piano's repetition but constantly changing it. Synthesizers creep in, some chiming, some bubbling and echoing; guitars weep and soar, harmonizing with wordless, reverberating male vocals. As it ends, the looping piano arpeggios finally fade away and humming electronics bring me down.

Visually, I imagine bits and pieces of specific images. The most recurring image throughout is that of a time-lapse film of the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean, as a solitary helicopter, seemingly defying time and space, gradually sinks lower and lower in the air until it penetrates the water, fragmenting in impossibly slow motion into a floating mass of broken machinery. Perhaps this is just a product of my overactive mind, but when I hear a song this gorgeous, it comes across to me as naturally visually evocative, no matter how complicated the image that comes across may be. Aurally, while the song is playing, I feel as if there's no reason for it to end, and when it ends, it does so gracefully and begs for a repeat.

Alas, the rest of the tracks are simply hit or miss. The most notable success is "Repeating the Procedure," which applies the Scottish Beta Band aesthetic to a shoegazer track. The follow-up to the title track, "Song for Jonathan," begins with a promising crystalline and complex guitar riff and fragmented rhythm, but with its chorus brings a keyboard phrase shamelessly aping the Edge's guitar in "Where the Streets Have No Name," distinctive echo and all. Unfortunately, the second half of the record applies possible Dark Side of the Moon influences a bit too liberally. Tracks six through nine all employ the official Pink Floyd ballad tempo and tone, and the effect is not so comfortably numbing.

If only I could recommend the rest of Goldenwest as highly as the opening track, it might even be a perfect record. It's hearing tracks like these that make me enjoy this whole reviewing thing. If there were a song of the year category here at Pitchfork, I have no doubt that "Goldenwest" would rank in my top 10 come the end of the year. It's just as perfectly cinematic as they come. The sad thing about this, however, is that even the best track Ester Drang can come up with in the rest pales in comparison. Viewed as a $15 single, it passes with flying colors, even with the exorbitant price tag; viewed as a full album, it doesn't quite make the cut.

~Spencer Owen