Rainer Maria's second album--and eighteen months in the making--"Look..." navigates between the terrestrial and the ethereal. The guitar is tuned open and sings through a cranked old Fender amplifier. The bass creates a second melody line. The percussion work is tastefully gigantic. Caithlin's vocal, the album centerpiece, at once invites trust and evokes grief. While ferociously independent, the album has a sense of pop-musical history. The Rainers grew up listening to punk rock and Brit-pop along with a tinge of metal, then moved backward through sixties rock, early folk and jazz. While the majority of independent music oscillates between driving hooks and quiet drawn out pop, it's the collision of the two that positions LOOK NOW LOOK AGAIN as one of 1999's most compelling musical endeavors.