Range of Light

S. Carey creates music that sounds like it's wandered off the path of his other gig as the drummer and multi-instrumentalist for Bon Iver. Taking the orchestrated beauty of that entity, Carey ventures deeper into the bucolic scenes that are inspired by his love for American naturalist John Muir, whose description of the Sierra Nevada mountain range inspired the title of Carey’s second solo album. Whereas Carey’s solo debut, All We Grow, was largely his own performances, Range of Light invites additional voices (including Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon), strings, woodwinds, and horns to color these often piano-based introspective pieces, all recorded in Vernon’s April Base Studios in Fall Creek, Wis. Carey says this music is informed by his love of jazz, modern classical, and Americana, and it’s easy to hear touches of each in these gentle, atmospheric tone poems. The extra percussion guiding “Crown the Pines,” in fact, sounds a bit out of place when heard alongside such understated pieces as “Creaking,” “Fire-Scene,” “Radiant,” and the sublime “Alpenglow.”