Somnia

Much like his close friend and creative kindred spirit Keith Fullerton Whitman, Greg Davis has a knack for getting so much out of so little. His quiet, wispy guitar work and serene odes to the organic world have crafted the way for many a laptop-savvy performer to come out of the closet, folk records in tow, and blend the two in an extraordinary way. Picking up where 2003's outstanding Curling Pond Woods left off, Somnia is a juxtaposition of contrasting temperatures: warm swelling tones and basslines over slowly shifting melodies that leave a feeling of dry coldness, much like the photos of frozen tundra on the album's cover. "Archer" easily sets the mood for what is to come: drones made from a single organic instrument recombined over and over, weaving notes into one another until they fade away, inevitably replaced by ones swelling up from underneath them. The solitude of "Clouds as Edges" easily bests the emotional droning any Icelandic quartet could have bellowed forth. The warmth of the epic "Campestral" could very well usher in sleep, but the brittle organ chords of "Furnace" will quickly remedy that situation, an appropriate gateway and ramp up to the album's finale, the haunting and isolate howls of "Mirages." It's a departure from Davis' leanings to simple folk/laptop songs, but it's also beautiful experimental music that warrants a serious listen.