Rivulets
You’ve Got Your Own
Acuarela
You’ve Got Your Own features its two best tracks as its bookends, and fills in the middle with decent to mediocre afterthoughts. “Waited For You,” the opener, is hushed, minimalist slow-core brilliance with Nathan Amundson and Jessica Bailiff trading exquisite harmonic lullabies over languid acoustic fingerstyle. “Shadow of a Ghost” recalls Low in both its glacial pace and haunting, quavering vocals. “Rain All Winter Long” has a pleasant, bright strum and blossoming electronics, but does little as far as the vocal melodies are concerned. “Let it Go,” the disc’s biggest misstep, is based on sturdy guitar riffs plucked from Mark Kozelek’s song book, but the flimsy, repetitious mantra “anyone would let it go” borders on meaningless, as the song rolls toward the five minute mark. The closer, “Slight Return,” is a return to form, revisiting the roots of “Waited For You,” but with the lyrics axed and some dreamy shoegaze hum added as punctuation. Rivulets have a decent, if somewhat lacking, EP with this release. If anything, Amundson should realize that his best songs here are the result of collaboration and that he would be best served using these folks to a greater extent next time around.
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