It’s sort of hard to know what to say about a new Goldmund record. Delicate piano, close-miked recording by Taylor Dupree, ambient fuzz: check, check, check. It basically follows in the footsteps of 2015’s Sometimes, even down to the moody black-and-white cover art. (Of all the Goldmund albums I have, only 2011’s stunning guitar-based American Civil War album All Will Prosper breaks from that pattern.) I would say that this has some of his most heavily processed sounds to date (which again continues the pattern of the years), and I think the final track What Lasts, with its strings and woodwind and glockenspiel (?), is about the most fulsomely orchestrated… but these are things of fractions.
Absolutely none of which matters when the music sounds as wonderful as this. Honestly, if you get past the achingly tender As You Know (the 5th of 15 short tracks) without melting a little bit, you’re made of sterner stuff than I am. There’s melancholy here, and occasionally a sinister note, as on the gently rumbling No Story. But the feeling that remains after the last notes have faded away is one of calm.
I bought this from Boomkat. They call it Modern Classical / Ambient.
dogrando writes about some records 