It's easy to apply whatever music you're listening at any given moment to your surroundings when the music plays and you're by yourself, you can imagine it as the soundtrack to the imaginary movie you star in. I had the best experience playing this album on a long drive the other week. And 'Traveling Through a Sea' recalls the work of the always echo-friendly New York-based singer-songwriter Azalia Snail. Others bear some resemblance to the band Clay Allison (who later became Opal and, in a different configuration, Mazzy Star) ca. On 'When We Fall' and 'Invisible', Harris sounds like Vashti Bunyan singing in an echoey hallway.

Let someone else criticize me for making my own inexact comparisons to sounds of yore: A handful of these songs bring to mind the criminally forgotten records that Lida Husik recorded for Shimmy Disc in the early 90s. And Christina Carter is more firmly working within a psych-folk idiom, while Valet is much more on a bluesy, guitar-based trip. Inca Ore's music is far heavier and murkier, however. In terms of contemporary musicians, the work of the Portland, Ore.-based compatriots Eva Saelens (aka Inca Ore), Charalambides co-founder Christina Carter, and Honey Owens (aka Valet) might spring to mind. Others have made similarly reverb-drenched, pastoral psychedelic pop before. Dead Deer is druggy and sexy and arty and pretty, but never pretentious. This remarkable album is actually what I personally always wanted 4AD records to sound like, only they never quite delivered the hazy pleasures their beautiful sleeve art promised (with the exception of Kurt Ralske's rock band Ultra Vivid Scene). Beyond that, though, it's about as exact as comparing KISS to the Ramones- both those bands were loud and made records in the mid-1970s and had lead singers who were dudes, but that's about it. And both feature whispery-voiced female singers whose words are tough to pick out. This makes sense in that both have subdued, minor-key melodies. Released earlier this year, the record has already been compared to classic releases from the British label 4AD, especially their flagship act the Cocteau Twins.

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