If you ever wondered whether your favorite album that is made solely from the sounds of music boxes would ever be trumped, you might have to reevaluate. Wait, you don't have an album that's made up purely of sounds from music boxes? In that case, Colleen's fourteen-track Et les Boites a Musique EP may jump right to the top.

Some of those tracks -- "Happy Birthday" and an appropriate "Pop Goes the Weasel" -- are simply short childhood riffs. But Colleen (born Cecile Schott) picks up where last year's stark Golden Morning Breaks left off. She's an instrumentalist, and these instrumentals are haunting throughout; they're a bit playful at times ("Happiness Nuggets"), but a feeling of tranquility pervades the EP. That sounds a bit pretentious, and so is making an album solely using music boxes, but Colleen has a gift for minimalism that is a bit more complex once you dig past the surface. She wrestles us through peacefulness, reminding of us of a time we hardly remember and eerily hinting that uncertainty lurks around the corner.

***

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Artist: http://www.colleenplays.org/

Label: http://www.theleaflabel.com/