Red Sun Through Smoke

Wondrous music, built mostly on classically trained tenor voice, piano, and tape manipulation. Craig has an unbroken record of shiver-inducingly beautiful albums, and this one is another step forward. Written and recorded in a brief timespan, during a time of several crises and with just a few materials at hand, this is a significantly drier and starker-sounding record than Craig's last few, and as a result it feels much more concrete and personal. Heartwrenching. RIYL Juliana Barwick, Grouper, Tim Hecker, Sarah Davachi, The Caretaker. Favorites: 3, 4, 11, 12. No FCCs detected.

1. (1:31)—A cappella, bold and declarative.
2. (3:08)—Piano tape loops, soft hiss.
3. *(6:38)—Two verses of voice and piano, alternating with grand passages of group vocals and noise. Wonderful. A little reminiscent of The Cinematic Orchestra's "To Build a Home."
4. *(2:01)—Very high singing, accompanied by warped vocal tape loops. Precarious.
5. (3:08)—Wobbling, grainy, dissonant, eerie. Hiss, anxious pulsing, faded voice, noise.
6. (2:09)—Gentle solo piano piece. Starts bright and pleasant, though gradually the bending and distortion of the tape becomes more prominent.
7. (1:33)—Fractured-sounding vocal tracks. Craig's lead vocals sound tinny and distant.
8. (5:35)—High, echoing piano. Deeper, dirgelike piano enters at two minutes. Tatters of voice. Fades into next track.
9. (1:39)—Funereal piano. Dry vocals. "We had grief for supper. The tray was black with little flowers."
10. (3:18)—Slightly dissonant acappella harmonies, one voice drifting over the rest.
11. *(6:03)—Broken harmonies, verging on grand. Intense, doom-like distortion enters almost two minutes in. Like an inverted, broken version of his piece "On the Reach of Explanations."
12. *(3:24)—Just piano and voice. Very slow, apprehensive. "Even the dark has a dark of its own."