By: Kyle Donley
Rating: 8/11 

Andrew Wright, perhaps better known as Sea Grit (though probably not known at all), has unwittingly created a fantastic score for a Jim Jarmusch film that has not been written yet. Wright’s debut, Wild Eyes (2010- Id Records), is a one-man-band tour de force of instrumental mood music that ranges from tense, pulsating rhythms to ambient ebbing and flowing. It’s music to shut up to.

Wild Eyes is an album deeply rooted in post-rock, though it manages to escape post-rock’s common pitfalls of grandiose pomposity (no eight-piece wind ensembles to be found anywhere!), in its place offering more of a homespun feel. However, categorizing it as entirely minimalist is a bit of a misnomer, considering that several of the album’s songs contain fuller, lush-sounding arrangements.

The album opens with “Idlewild,” a song that recalls the idiosyncratic melodies of Animal Collective, bookended by droning waves of feedback. From there it swiftly changes speeds with the sleepy acoustic-driven “What Wants Was” and the ultra-minimalism of “Ex Machina,” comprised mainly of reverbed guitar noodling that sounds so mournful one can only assume said guitar accidently murdered his guitar brother in a crazy barnyard machinery accident. 

However, just as the album begins to veer into the overly down-tempo, it picks up with “TV in ’93,” a short blast of melodic guitar and steady bass drum (though, as the title suggests, there are no snippets of Murphy Brown thrown into the mix).  “Blacktop” serves as a great homage to paranoid post-punkers 23 Skidoo, with its wily guitar and jungle rhythms that have the capability of giving even a 15-year-old a Vietnam flashback.

At the crux of the album is “It’s Like,” whose slow-building, xylophone-tinged melody gives way to a smattering of noise (accented by the steady bleep of hospital equipment) before returning back to sanity. As that intensity fades, so does the album, with the closer “Gold,” lush with washes of tremoloed guitar that, depending on who you are, sounds like either a hazy day on the beach or the throes of a heroin overdose. Perhaps a heroin overdose on the beach.

Showcasing a wide array of influences and textures, Sea Grit has released a stellar debut with Wide Eyes. With each song comes a new mood. Naturally, it’s the perfect kind of music to have self-important revelations to. It’s also great to listen to while exchanging briefcases full of thousands of dollars in unmarked bills.