Tor Lundvall – Sleeping and Hiding (2009) [Dais] // Grade: A

I’ve written and deleted the phrase “Tor Lundvall paints music” no fewer than 15 times in the past 5 minutes. It’s stupid. It’s writerly. But listen to Sleeping and Hiding: it’s also effing true. Everything about this album is as textural and rich as thick paint on canvas; not watercolors but oils, not translucent pastels but midnight blacks. It’s a thing with Lundvall, this sort of nuanced layering; his dark, ghostly compositions have made him one of the most consistently interesting ambient producers of the past decade (and honestly, one of the most underrated).

Originally intended to be the third in a series of albums that started with 2004′s Last Light and 2006′s Empty City, and released now on very limited edition, hand-numbered vinyl, Sleeping and Hiding is classic Tundvall: both haunted and ethereal, an album that only gets darker as it moves forward. Opener “City Rain” is the lightest of the bunch, packed with sweet, sweeping atmosphere and Tundvall’s buttery violin strain of a voice (think Thom Yorke meets Erlend Oye). But then we get into “Spring Song” — an ominous thump that feels less like spring than some totally non-aggressive interlude outtake from The Fragile — and the ghostly throb of “Dark Roads.” Then the ominous whistles and steady sub bass of “Bird Girl.” And by then, the album is so immersed in pitch-black night, it’s difficult to remember that it started on a vaguely lighthearted note.

Which isn’t to say it’s not pretty — Lundvall is nothing if not a gorgeous composer. Or that it’s even all that inaccessible. Though he’s always been mired in the heaviest ambiance, Lundvall does, at heart, seem to love the sense and structure of a decent pop song. He just also happens to love stripping it of everything but its most basic elements and enveloping it in a warm, dark cave of barely there sounds. Or, you know, painterly. Like I said.

- Rue Sauvage