Any band that claims Gillian Welch and Avro Part as influences is bound to be unusual; but unusual by itself is not so exciting: what Balmorhea continues to do is mix their unusual with extraordinarily compelling. Hanging descriptive words on their wordless creations feels almost tacky…but that’s our job.

Steady as clockwork but far more interesting, Balmorhea is releasing their now fourth early-year album of delicate, emotional, occasionally prickly instrumental tracks. (Previously: Balmorhea, April 2007, Rivers Arms, February 2008, All is Wild, All is Silent, March, 2009.) This one drops - does a Balmorhea record drop? Let’s say it floats - on Western Vinyl this Feb. 23rd. We’ll all be expecting another early 2011. The first, and most obvious quality of any Balmorhea record, for those of us on a steady diet of indie pop, is the lack of vocals: you’re launched into a completely different headspace by Constellations, not so much guided by the hand to a particular mood as you are given a huge space in which to wander free. Their compositions have a strange way of feeling shorter than they are, because you immediately lose track of both time and your immediate surroundings. (Or, anyway, some of us do – maybe we were unhinged to begin with.)

They are following in the footsteps of many of their Icelandic contemporaries in doing away with the distinction between classical and pop. It’s dark, it’s haunting, it has occasional vestiges of country – or, maybe, western is the better word, a soundtrack to a cold winter in Monument Valley.

It’s not, of course, a commercial sound; there is no single, but for me there’s an early standout track: “On the Weight of Night”, coming toward the end of the album, patiently builds to a glowing, expansive climax; it is the sound of the moment when All is Revealed. For a band that at first listen seems subdued, they inspire some powerful associations: biblical, abstract, apocalyptic, primal. It’s as if Balmorhea backtracked to a time before rock & blues and followed a different musical evolutionary path: there is some recognizable DNA in there, but this is a new creature altogether. Constellations will put you somewhere beyond.

The band – Michael Muller and the distractingly named Rob Lowe backed by Aisha Burns, Travis Chapman, Nicole Kern, Mike Bell, Bruce Blay and Taylor Tehan – will head out in support of this one shortly after release, and return for SXSW. No word as of yet on a Austin release party…