Westerbur & Rowe "2015" LP

Northern Ashram Records

I ride HARD for everything W&R have released. The crisp, vocal-less, psychedelia with tasteful prog touches is often a Sunday morning mellow in the Blackwell household. The fact that there are no song titles, that their sides continue across each release (meaning LP "2015" is G and H) that the art is all flawlessly silk-screened and is all self-released on their wonderfully named Northern Ashram imprint easily makes Westerbur & Rowe my favorite thing to develop in Detroit since I left in 2009. These guys are such perfectionists they refuse to perform live, as each side-long foray is layer upon meticulous layer of e-z feeling vibes. I’ve long pondered a way for Third Man to get involved with W&R, but other than getting it in front of more eyeballs, I have trouble finding anything we could do to improve these releases. Maybe a compilation of edits could work? I’m not entirely sure. Welcome to an internal monologue exposed for the public to see. All that being said, "2015" (ironically or not, released September 2016) is my least favorite release from this duo yet. It didn’t hit me. Maybe this can be improved upon with future listens/contemplation, I’m not quite sure. Don’t write it off just yet…and at 250 copies, you’d ALL benefit in grabbing one if just for the assurance that this is done right. Shit, you should do that for ANY of their releases. But if you’re only gonna grab one, start at "2013" and then explore outward from there.