Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has become a lodestar to ambient artists in the business of music that feels like bathing in the eternal. For Cantu-Ledesma himself, 20 minutes or so will do: The Texas composer introduced Gift Songs with “The Milky Sea,” a single of just that length that begins with a cascading piano flourish before sinking ever deeper into an Atlantis of undulating synths and drums. The rest of the album, partly inspired by his work as a Zen priest and hospice worker, evokes “being amongst running waters, hearing wind through trees, or the rhythm of hiking to a vista with friends at twilight,” he said in press materials.
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Dutch Interior: Moneyball [Fat Possum]
Dutch Interior are all charm on Moneyball, their third studio album and Fat Possum debut, and it’s easy to get caught up in the fun the six-piece indie-rock group whips up. Recorded over a six month period in the band’s Long Beach, California, studio, Moneyball is, at once, bleary and sharp. Produced by the band’s own Conner Reeves and mixed by Modest Mouse go-to Phil Ek, Moneyball reintroduces Dutch Interior as a group with a resting heart rate between Drive-By Truckers and Florry.
