In the thick of high school I spent a lot of time looking at the beautiful covers of Constellation releases. Seven years later I somewhat regret a lot of the music I bought in those days, but not a single CST album do I regret shelling out $14 for! There's a singular look, carefully conceived and thoughtful, that elevates these releases and even their music when that's not at its best.
Enregistreur, another I meant to hear and never did till now (ironically I bought most of this pointedly anti-corporate label's releases at Borders, which didn't do the best job of keeping 'em in stock), is rooted in a percussive, droning minimalism that doesn't require the trappings of elegant design to convey its sensibility.
Song titles do go a long way in that direction, though - "Behind the Water Tower," "My Country Is Winter," "Silence Sur le Plateau" - these song titles set me up for compositions rooted in a firm sense of place, and indeed the songs take their time in developing, though they don't reach the level of singular definition that'd carry them out of an album context. It's a wintry album - again I'll say minimal, surprisingly so, with a fluid use of bass as a primary instrument. This isn't rock, even of a post- variety, it's meditative music that lends itself as much to solitude as dread. Where did this stuff go, and why did I stop listening to Constellation stuff in the first place?
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