Closer lays down four tracks in this short offering, and I can’t say it raises more than a shrug from me. Melodic electronica with everything wrapped in a thin gauze of white noise. “Leak” tries to add some club heaviness with leaden beats. “Typhoon” goes for brighter tones, but when it switches to thick, rumbling chords, they’re dialed back too far to make any impact. Maybe it’s the artist’s intention to deflate the usual weightiness of this sort of music, but it feels like nothing here strives to impress. It’s content to hiss, sing a little, and go on its way. A pass for me, but take a listen and form your own thoughts.

Available at Bandcamp.

If an “hour-long meditation on self-doubt, anxiety, and separation from one’s self” can always sound as good as Eluvium’s False Readings On, I need to meditate more often. There is a distinct undercurrent of sadness to Matthew Cooper’s work here, but it’s couched in such soft, ethereal beauty that it just seeps in slowly rather than weighing heavily upon the listener. The connection evolves across 11 songs that combine an ambient framework with phrasing and structure that rings of a classical influence. A repeated use of vocal pads adds to that, and brings in a sacred-music feel to most the tracks here. It shows up first at the end of the opening piece, “Strangeworks,” somewhere between hymnal and operatic. Piano and synth chords set the stage and then accompany it as the piece winds down. On “Beyond the Moon for Someone in Reverse,” they come after a long stretch of quiet minimalism. At its outset, the piece is built on a whisper of a vocal drone and low, muted string notes. Halfway along, the voices rise like prayer, their brightness sudden and contrasting–and so, quite effective. Allusions to Pärt can be made here, and rightfully so. “Movie Night Revisited” is more immediate with its vocal aspect, another prayer-like offering with an unobtrusive drone foundation. Reverb applied to the vocals give it even more of a singing-in-church feel. The voices step out to give way to a woodwind-toned lead and a breathy harmonium sound that lifts up to transform into something more like a pipe organ. Cooper steps away from the vocals on the title track, a short, minimal work with spoken snippets and crackling electronic backdrop. The album closes with the massive wall of drones that form the heart of “Posturing Through Metaphysical Collapse.” Cooper builds it during the piece’s 17-minute flow in a way that is never obvious. It rises and thickens into a tight grid of hissing white noise with a dynamic core.

False Readings On is a beautiful album poised at the juncture between ambient and the modern classical works of composers such as Pärt and Richter. Unhurried, deep, and complex, it’s relaxing in a low-level cathartic kind of way. Speaking to you softly, it finds your feelings and plays on them. This is one of those albums that, when it came up in a shuffle in my review queue, never failed to stop me in my tracks and make me need to know who was putting out such moving music. It’s Eluvium, and you need to listen to this now.

Available at Bandcamp.

Armed only with bass guitars and effects pedals, Steve Lawson arrives to get seriously funky-jazzy on your ass. Not right away, mind you. Lawson, referred to on the cover of the October 2015 edition of Bass Guitar Magazine as “The Lord of the Loops,” uses much of the opening track, “When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression,” to walk you through his gear and the sounds it gives him. Ambient sighs, curling electronic squibs, and clattering percussive elements mix around occasional riffs off the bass. And we get that in a couple permutations of tone as well. The jazz slides in more as we go along. Lawson’s eloquent phrasing on  “Wait and See What Happens” plays out against a tick-rock rhythm that sounds like it’s being played on pots and pans–including a couple of hearty thumps. The fluidity of the bass gliding over the strident percussive line works well. “I Thought Only Foreigners Knew That” walks in full of funk, and Lawson immediately lights up the strings with fast flurries, playful runs, and crunches of chords. This piece finds Lawson expressing freely and jazzily high up the neck while his initial loops keep that smooth stride flowing. “Come the Revolution” also gets its funk on via its waking bass bottom line and liberal application of wah-wah. “Five Stages” offers the purest bass experience, a set of solo expressions carefully laid over each other, with just the slightest hint of a constant electronic wash beneath it.(And one oddly placed touch of that kitchen-born percussion that’s mildly distracting.)  As much as each element feels like a new exploration, they also grow organically like branches off the last idea. Even when Lawson gets down to grinding odd sounds and scratches out of his strings, it makes sense. As much as I enjoy the in-the-moment feel of a lot of the work here, two pieces that come across as more melody-driven stand out for me. “Ten Years Too Late” is built on ever-increasing loops, heading toward its thick, complex high point where Lawson absolutely unleashes his bass in fiery rock fury. At that stage the bedrock of his loops is a churning, rhythmic force that holds steady as he grinds. “Her Kindness” is a quiet love song, a perfect jazz-guitar piece that sings in a very romantic voice. I’m reminded here of the playing of Tuck Andress of Tuck & Parri, that same easy elegance and pure expressiveness.

The Surrender of Time hits just the right mix of improv-based exploration and straight-ahead melodic lines. Lawson’s technical skill with the bass is showcased in any number of ways, and there’s no doubting he is the “Lord of the Loops.” His builds are a pleasure to listen to, and when he lays his jazz lines across them, there’s a totality of sound that hits every time. This is my introduction to this prolific bassist’s work, and it’s made me need to dig in deeper. Get ahold of this soon.

Available at Steve Lawson’s web site.