In the mostly unpredictable world of independent rock, breaking up may be hard to do -- but nonetheless it seems to come quite regularly with the territory. Consider the case of Saxon Shore, an atmospheric, instrumental guitar band playing in the tradition of Sigur Ros and Mogwai, and based at the time in New York City.

In the summer of 2004, the three-person group seemed to have reached a breaking point. Brothers Josh and Zach Tillman, the drummer and bassist, respectively, had chosen to call it quits. That left founder Matt Doty all by his lonesome, and considering something of a career reinvention: A former business major, Doty nearly accepted a job as a financial planner. But his relationship with swirling, melancholic post-rock had other plans, and soon he’d recruited two entirely new musicians. Small problem: One lived in Philadelphia. The other was based in Washington, D.C.

Doty, however, was still calling New York City home, so instead of gathering together to write the music that would eventually become the new trio’s first release, the three relegated themselves to trading music files via the Internet. Slowly, the inklings of an album began to form. Appropriately titled The Exquisite Death of Saxon Shore, the disc was cobbled together in a style not entirely unlike that of the Surrealist’s “exquisite corpse” collage sessions, during which each person in a group would add a small portion to a larger drawing or other work of art, without knowing what the others had already contributed.

The resulting album, according to press materials, is meant to explore the story of the group’s hypothetical death -- not that even the most astute of rock obsessives would guess such a theme from hearing the music alone. Produced and mixed by Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev), The Exquisite Death eschews typical rock-band song structure in favor of the lush, the spaced-out, and the -- how else to say it? -- exquisiteness that can sometimes result from a democratic configuration such as Saxon Shore’s. While it’s true that the result of a project created by three proverbial Indians with no proverbial chief could have been a sonic mess, instead, the opposite occurred. With its 10 tracks of instrumental grandeur and ethereal energy, The Exquisite Death, it turns out, is much more accurately the sound of exquisite life.