Wishing Like a Mountain and Thinking Like the Sea by Poi Dog Pondering

Wishing Like a Mountain and Thinking Like the Sea, Poi Dog Pondering's 1990 album, is what happens when a band of buskers gets let loose in a studio with more than 36 instruments and a refusal to rehearse. Mike Stewart produced with the band, eight of them for the sessions, mostly in Austin, Texas, where Frank Orrall's roving outfit had put down roots after starting in Hawaii and busking its way across North America. Orrall insisted they weren't playing ethnomusicologists, just pouring every influence they had into one sound.

It's warm, ramshackle and open-hearted: Susan Voelz picks up a mandocello on "Fruitless", "The Me That Was Your Son" mourns a mother over a zouk lilt, and "The Ancient Egyptians" tips its hat to Jonathan Richman. "U Li La Lu" led off as the first single, and the Chicago Tribune heard a more focused, folky record still celebrating simple pleasures.

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