Ancient Romans

Sun Araw is the solo vehicle of San Francisco–based guitarist Cameron Stallones, an increasingly prolific underground mainstay who has helped guide neo-psych rockers Magic Lantern through a set of hypnotic, increasingly dub-steeped releases and has collaborated with artists as diverse as drone darlings Pocahaunted and reggae legends The Congos. Ancient Romans is the fifth Sun Araw full-length and, like all Sun Araw efforts thus far, inhabits a murky sonic headspace that splits the difference between the instrumental meanderings of krautrock mainstays like Moebius & Plank and the wondrous theatricality of some of Ennio Morricone’s more ominous, synthesizer-laden soundtrack work. The results are reliably mesmerizing. Cameron’s dreamy, rigorously minimal compositions never devolve into directionless noodling, and close listening reveals Ancient Romans to be a fastidiously constructed album whose luxuriant guitar and synth textures have the hallucinatory radiance of fever dreams.