Mirrorwork

Alastair Galbraith’s third album isn’t quite beatific, but there’s certainly a calmer radiance to this one, as though he’s maybe resolved some of the emotional conundrums that informed its precursors, Morse and Talisman. The tension and foreboding of the opener, “For Free,” a mantra thatched with highly strung guitars that drone like hornet’s nests, is disquieting, but much of Mirrorwork is more pastoral in tone; it’s rich with snippets of gentle melody, backwards guitar and violin, buzzing casio, softly chanted and mumbled vocals. There are very few artists who can translate such simply complex emotions and experiences – sadness, joy, love, loss, intimacy, everydayness – into songs of such profundity, and furthermore, to make them sound like spectral, yet homely folk songs that’ve always reverberated through our collective consciousness. That’s Galbraith’s gift.