"Dammit," sighed Will Johnson as he settled uneasily into the control room couch of the Echo Lab Studio in Argyle, Texas. He looked around at his friends assembled to listen to the rough sketches he had recorded of the songs for the new South San Gabriel album and with a degree of unease continued, "I barely slept before I drove up from Austin this morning thinking about how we have a couple of weeks of studio time booked, none of you guys have even heard the songs yet, and I'm afraid people will think we've gone crazy because we're making an album that tells a story about a cat. To top it off, my cat Jackson christened my journey by peeing on my sleeping bag right as I was fixin' to load it in my truck. I don't know how to interpret that gesture."

So began work on what became The Carlton Chronicles: Not Until the Operation's Through, the third South San Gabriel CD. Delve into Johnson's elliptical narratives the way they demand, and any thought of "concept" fades. Instead, there's an epic poem borne by South San Gabriel's expressive textures and sounds, majestic and rife with sonic detail. Through intuition and restraint the coterie of multi-instrumentalists guide one another's playing as the music unfolds around them into the tale of a sickly cat: a song cycle rich with themes of flight, mortality, and reconciliation, regardless of the species of the narrator. The songs sweep up frailty and place it in relief, stretching into beckoning, elusive emotional realms not condensable into mere language.

South San Gabriel, like Centro-matic, emanates from Johnson's immense vault of songs. While Centro-matic is best known for their bombastic, fuzz-laden rock songs and Johnson's solo recordings tend toward the sad and sparse, South San Gabriel is the outlet for Johnson's open-ended, hallucinatory pop songs. Featuring a revolving cast of players, including all the members of Centro-matic, it takes on a family and friends collective-like mentality. Often, performers meet for the first time minutes before a set, and this sort of improvisational/communal spirit shapes the wandering nature of South San Gabriel. Though relatively unknown in the United States, South San Gabriel is a known and well-loved venture in Europe, an odd reversal of fortunes for the boys of Centro-matic. The Carlton Chronicles follows up 2003's Welcome, Convalescence.

The stunning journey of The Carlton Chronicles fits neatly on a shelf with Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, and Smog, blending stunning songwriting with a delicate and nuanced approach to production and orchestration. The band has raised the bar once again-only one question remains: What could possibly be next?