Although I cannot really say why, I have always been partial to the school of music where one takes a fairly standard piece, call it post-rock if you must, and then has at it with bursts of noise and static, partially obscuring without completely defiling the base material. That mix of the recognizable and the subversive appeals to me. Which is why I like You Are No One from Canadian artist An Ant and An Atom. There are just five pieces here, and they shoot by in half an hour, but there’s a nice depth of sound along with that whole let’s subvert the paradigm thing. “The Bathory Allure” is my prime example. A simple, homey melody on guitar stuns patiently along, pleasantly catchy in its own way, and the air around it slowly fills with feedback and hissing static. It’s worked up to a point where the two sides of the equation gently nudge each other past the 50/50 point, with both agreeing to fade at the end. “I Left It In Places I’d Have to Forget About” takes the same tack, but fully immerses you in it, being the longest track here at just over 10 minutes. Fuzzed out and hypnotic walls of sound curl up and around a very post-rock guitar tune and the whole thing escorts you away for a while. It’s cool to realize that you’re somewhat relaxing to the effect of what’s actually a very coarse, grating sound in spots. And through that haze, the melody retains its own draw.

You Are No One is thick with texture and masses of small sound. Its layers run quite deep, and the balance of harsh and soft is handled nicely. A release that gets better with each listen, and it has made me want to check out the artist’s other work as well.

Available from the artist’s web site.