Armed with the psalms of David, an acoustic guitar, and an electronic Omnichord, Half-handed Cloud assails nineteen pop songs outside Eden’s gates on Halos & Lassos, released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. With hints of fitness music and video game soundtracks, Halos & Lassos festively tromps through 19 songs like a mostly-sunny afternoon in Berkeley, California, home of main singer and songwriter John Ringhofer. With the modal purity of Moondog, symphonic elements of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and the ancient art of punning, the album boasts pleasant acoustic melodies arranged around the ambidextrous Omnichord, a kidney-shaped electronic auto-harp/drum machine/synthesizer from the 1980′s. This odd instrument accounts for much of the unique coloring on the album: accordion-like chords, scrupulous drum beats, pre-set bass-lines, and a rectangular pressure pad strummed for gurgling “effects.” Recorded/mixed by Brandon Buckner in May 2005 at Ears of Corn Studio in Iowa City, Halos & Lassos is Half-handed Cloud’s fourth full-length album for Asthmatic Kitty; 2001′s acclaimed, Learning About Your Scale (also mixed by Buckner) was his first, followed by, We Haven’t Just Been Told, We have been Loved (2002), and 2005′s Thy is a Word & Feet Need Lamps. Halos & Lassos showcases John Ringhofer on piano, banjo, marimba, melodian, guitar, bass, bell-kit, trombone, Omnichord, and vocals, joined by Brandon Buckner on drums, and percussion and Wendy Buckner on Bass Clarinet.
