This month’s featured album has a title that defies newsletter editorial restrictions on special fonts, foreign languages, and equations. I have to love a duo that dares to name their album with a formula that describes how the angle of observation influences an apparent distance. Parallax is Martin Watkinson and Brendan Littlefield making music that is difficult to categorize. Their new album is very different from others in the Co-op’s CD collection. Listen from one point of view, and you will hear piano on top of cello. From another angle, the cello or maybe a mandolin appears closer. And throughout all the introspective lyrics you will hear nary a guitar or drum.

Barely out of high school and on hiatus before taking off for college next fall, Brendan (on piano) and Martin (on cello) have recorded ten original songs that take you through the shadows of their musical and personal experiences. Both young men also sing and play mandolin, and the album highlights their improvisational roots and compositional skills. I had to stretch my ears to catch all the fast-flying words, and they are very good, as are the musicality and originality. Martin and Brendan began collaborating in high school when Martin sought a piano player for a school project, and the two found themselves compatible in taste and skill. Though I have said they are a piano and cello duo, several tracks on their CD belie that statement, such as “Queen of the Sidewalk Café,” where both musicians show off on strings in a song which I think is about appearances and cultural casts.

You may have heard Martin play his see-through electronic cello in the produce department on Tasteful Thursday. Or maybe you heard Parallax at Women’s Works in the University of Idaho (UI), SUB ballroom on November 10. (I did, and I loved hearing their cover of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer.” Elton – if you are reading this, do not sue these young men; they were honoring you!) These well-trained young musicians appreciate dynamics. Loud and soft, vocals up front. Yes! “Streetlight Shadows” is exemplary of the album: “We kept off the main roads, dodging the curfew…. as streetlight shadows fleeing from the dawn.” More talk of shadows can be heard on “Don’t Go,” which features a piano-cello drive skipping through “childhood escapades.” On “Misunderstood Magnesium” the piano ticks like a clock, and there are passing French lyrics which editorial guidelines forbid me to relay to you, so you must buy the CD to hear them. The lyrics flow fast and free on “Midnight Apples:” “I’m tired of that voice in the back of my head, that keeps me from the welcome night, the quiet yet persistent tones, saying you’re not living this, the shadow isn’t yours, the empty footprints that you leave behind on the wet cement are the only things you own.”

Parallax’s resume includes Martin’s junior year in France on a Rotary Youth Exchange, where he played in a ska band, and Brendan’s participation in “Eat, Sleep and Funk,” with obligatory tight pants and afro wigs. Brendan started piano lessons at age four from UI music professor Pamela Bathurst, who is coincidentally his Mom. Martin claims two members of Potatohead as parents, and began studying cello with Ann Wharton at a very young age.

“Portrait of a Missing Girl” invokes the image of great beauty and obligatory references to the moon—always a player in romance and song. “Caffeine and Alcohol” grows in emotional intensity and volume to its conclusion. It is best listened to on headphones. “Requiem” is a musical poem to a pine tree. I wonder how such young people have come to appreciate 100 tree rings and all that it implies: “Sway as best you can …the holly, the ivy will blanket you, strangle you.” There are nice harmonies on this track, which is aided by Eric Anderson on banjo.

You can hear Parallax at the Co-op on December 11, before Brendan takes off to Lewis and Clark College in Portland, and Martin to Western Washington University in Bellingham. They may not retain the name Parallax, but I hope they hang on to their improbable blend of youthful idealism and musical maturity.