Album title:
Twilight and Ghost Stories
Artist:
Chis Schlarb
Label:
Asthmatic Kitty
On this album's sleeve, an innocent wee lad gazes wistfully at an autumnal woodland while menacing storm clouds threaten to roll over the horizon and engulf everything, mirroring the music inside perfectly. Inspired by the "din of street and rain," this composition by jazz guitarist Chris Schlarb (of I Heart Lung) is a triumph of minimalist folktronic gorgeousness. Deeply surreal but never unsettling, it's like being in the waiting room next to a David Lynch dream sequence –sounds of depraved carnivals and deformed conversations waft softly past under an air of overwhelming serenity. A host of guests, including Sufjan Stevens and Dirty Projectors, and disparate recording sessions give Twilight and Ghost Stories a feel of being more a collage of field recordings and consequently a much more 'real life' feel so that we too can know what it is like to gaze at enchanted woods at dusk while storms are held at bay by magic. [Ali Maloney]