Picastro is a Toronto-based collective centred around front woman and song-writer Liz Hysen. Picastro delivers a brooding avant folk-rock akin to Godspeed You Black Emperor! backing Cat Power at her most forlorn. Previous records have featured Owen Pallett and album number four “Become Secret” includes vocal contributions from Tony Dekker (Great Lake Swimmers), Brendan Massei (Viking Moses) and Colleen Kinsella (Cerberus Shoal).

In addition to Cat Power, listening to “Become Secret” I am reminded of other vocalists dealing in melancholic nocturnes like Lisa Germano and Nina Nastasia. This is telling because over half these songs are instrumentals and when Hysen does sing her contribution, it occupies only a small portion of the song’s length. As with her band - cello, acoustic guitar, drums and piano - Hysen knows precisely how to gain maximum, often unsettling effect from using her voice and those instruments sparingly.


This is dark chamber music built around repeated patterns of piano or cello, with equal nods to east European folk, post-rock and cinematic soundtracks. In fact, if Nick Cave and Warren Ellis hadn’t delivered on one of their soundtrack commissions Picastro’s ‘A Neck in the Desert’ would perfectly fit the bill as a replacement for one of their windswept, plaintive instrumentals. But this has added eerie intensity.

Throughout there are deft flickers of experimentalism. In ‘Neva’ the sustain on the cello is somehow (electronically?) intensified and overdriven; in ‘Split Head’ over gently repeated acoustic guitar lines comes squiggles and squalls of electric guitar, flailing and fizzing like severed electricity cables. Like the music, Hysen’s lyrics often loop and repeat lines and phrases. The mysterious and bewitching ‘Suttee’ sets the chant of “You will never grieve again, you will never love again”, repeated with slight variation each time over marching feet. When she does sing solo, for the most part Hysen sounds dispassionate but never un-engaged. When not reduced to single phrases the submerged lyrics can be difficult to divine but also carry an air of menace. The tender resignation of ‘Pig and Sucker’ and references to body parts in ‘Split Head’ both hint at violent relationships.

“Become Secret” is bleak, unsettling, melancholy but never alienating or obscure. Its sombre intimacy and intensity make it an utterly compelling and cathartic listen. With this record, Picastro should become less secret to more listeners.