Namur
Songs from the valley of Baca
Thehourislate

The style of music offered up by Namur, essentially the solo project of Sweden's David Åhlén, deserves a good, descriptive name. I'm sick of words like "slowcore" and "shoegaze" to describe this style of heavily atmospheric, churning melancholia. But there may be no substitute for "electro ambient dream pop," the title of a real Yahoo! group. That's pretty accurate, so let's go with it. "Songs from the valley of Baca" is the third Namur release and it's a thing of fragile beauty. Rather minimal, with some fuzzy, My Bloody Valentine-style guitar drone and superb drumming complementing Åhlén's soft, compellingly shy vocals. "Consuming fire" and "Marching" are exceptionally fine, emotionally stirring tunes (especially the keening vocal on that latter track), and again I have to mention the beauty of the drums... clean, loud and hypnotic a la John Bonham. The vocals are mixed almost in the background, like they're just part of the blissful, foggy ambience. "Vesper" is a solemn, beatless song which is deeply melancholy... you'll get as lost in thought as the singer seems to be if you just drift with this wisp of a tune. And "Brighter than the sun" sounds uncannily like Sigur Ros, just a bit less lush; but the textural organ and little snowflake synth flurries are quite captivating. And the vocal's emotive power is doubled here. Rebekkamaria from Lampshade provides harmonies on one track, but otherwise, this is a pretty singular affair, and it's as light as a dream. Very pretty, haunting music worth drifting off to sleep to...
- Kevin Renick