Bring Me the Head of Kyle Bobby Dunn

Kyle Bobby Dunn's steady stream of releases exploring ambient and drone composition continues on 2012's Bring Me the Head of Kyle Bobby Dunn — though it must be said that it's a little hard to imagine him soundtracking anything Sam Peckinpah ever did. "Canticle of Votier's Flats" begins the album on an expected note of slow, ambient calm, increasing in volume with a central melody leading the way, understatedly providing an initial brief hook. But "La Chanson de Beurrage" is where everything fully kicks in, a quarter-hour piece balancing off a seeming simplicity — a circular, minimal melodic progression — with an engrossing warmth and focus that compare to Stars of the Lid at their most involving, but with a particular vision that is all Dunn's own. Shifts in the arrangement change the tones and textures without removing that focus, while "Douglas Glen Theme" is even more subtle, almost barely there at the start, it takes a comparatively more dramatic path as it quietly evolves into a near-brass fanfare of a kind, albeit with just one lead instrument, as if it was a slow, utterly serene tribute set against a calm wash rising and falling. "Ending of All Odds" is another short one, as is the concluding "Diamond Cove," one of his more Eno-like compositions, while "An Evening with Dusty" further reveals why Dunn's work is so consistently enjoyable.