In roughly eight months, VOWLS have made themselves candidates for the local musical equivalent of the NBA’s Most Improved Player award. Their Krautrockish synths range from psychedelic to eardrum-sizzling, their guitars stay warm and folky and it’s hard not to grin at their talk-singing cadence inna Bob Dylan–via–Beck stylee. “Waking” with its layer of atmospheric haze (“I walk around with a head full of you / it’s a spell I can’t undo”) is the kind of single that would have blown up college radio in 1996, and still might.

- Dave Morris (Eye Weekly - November 2009)

There was much debate at WL436 about Owls. Specifically what sense does an owl have to give up in order to see at night? Many suggestions were forthcoming, many of them were probably scientifically correct, but the one that stuck was this: If an owl can see in the dark, it forfeits its ability to see in the light. That’s how I came to understand the understated brilliance of Vowls, as I groped around in the dark of the song I realized that if I wanted to understand these textures of glocks and beats I had to stop looking for what I could see and instead to look for the shadows of what I was missing, suddenly polyrhythms leapt out of the sampled beats and hooks came out of the harmonies. Then everybody started to dance.

– Doc Pickles (Wavelength Music Arts Project, February 2009)

…

Denise Benson Best Bets (Eye Weekly, 2009)

Mar 12-18: CMW Showcase at Cameron House

Stick around for a 1am set by local krautrock-cum-techno trio Vowls.

Apr 23-29: Four Tet at Wrongbar

Local electroacoustic trio Vowls open with their spacey goodness.