Gawd, I love some of those fragmented lyrics that Tim Rutili comes up with on the Califone albums and Roomsound, in retrospect, is probably my favorite album from 2001. Don't know how many dozens of times this album has been the soundtrack for my day, but it's a lot. "Bottles & Bones (shade & sympathy)" will probably follow me around for the rest of my life. What a cool song. And there's just so many of them on here. Sure, at first they kind of all meander together, but pretty soon it starts to fall into scenes. Almost like a landscape. I think Califone (and Rutili in particular) does have a vision similar to that of a good cinematographer, and when you add in the array of expertly played acoustic instruments, and the subtle electro-organic textures by Brian Deck that add space and ambience, and the junkyard percussion that goes almost unnoticed at times, it all adds up to music with a real heart and soul.

Love it! And it even comes with three videos at the end of the band playing live in an industrial bathroom that is also very cool. Electronically textured junkyard folk blues? There was a label on the cover of their Quicksand/Cradlesnakes CD with a quote from the Chicago Tribune, "How the Flaming Lips might've interpreted Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music". Not sure if that rings true, but mix some Exile On Main Street era Stones with those Flaming Lips and maybe you're getting closer to the mark