Silver Triplets of the Rio Hondo is the latest project from William Slater, founding member of Portland psych heavyweights Grails. The sound drifts somewhere between a desert hallucination and a busted neon roadside bar at 2am — sequenced synths, strings, drum machines, tape-noise textures and deep crooner vocals all tangled together into something cinematic, strange and weirdly warm.
It feels like outlaw country being transmitted from another planet. Ghost-town ballads for the end times. Honky tonk music for people dissociating under fluorescent motel lights. Gene Autry trapped in a sci-fi fever dream, trying to sing his way out.
The trio is rounded out by Haven Multz Matthews, whose playing adds a dreamy looseness beneath the machinery, and Christopher Cook, switching effortlessly between dusty Bakersfield twang and bursts of abrasive avant-noise guitar. Samples drift in and out like half-remembered radio signals, somehow making the whole thing feel both huge and intimate at the same time.
