“I’ve spent years with these songs when they were only mine, and I emptied myself into them…So if you’re going to listen, please know that this is all of me. A flawed and destructive mess of good intentions. A still life.”

The album is an emotional mixture of futuristic electronics, lo-fi bedroom pop and heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics. It’s also magnificently produced, sounding like a cinematic, widescreen version of the genre. Those of you who like Houses will love Dawn Golden, as will fans of Youth Lagoon, Arrange and the newer stuff by The Antlers. This is an album to be listened to on headphones, or on lonely nighttime drives. Tortoriello has similar ideas:

“I hope you will listen to it on your headphones and keep someone that maybe you miss a lot in your mind while you do. Maybe you will see them soon and I hope that you do.”

Lead single ‘All I Want’ (which you can hear in the player above) is a slow-burning epic, which climaxes in a chaotic, but triumphant, breakdown. The track has recently been given the remix treatment by Diplo too, which you can hear over at Soundcloud. We also featured the video (an excellent sci-fi love story directed by Tyler T. Williams) ‘All I Want’ over at Beatclash, so check that out too.

You can buy Still Life right now via Downtown Records / Mad Decent.

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As the concept suggests, the album is highly cinematic and is doused in melancholy, while neatly side-stepping the epic bombast that would have been easy to create handling such an emotive theme.The album also avoids going too far in the opposite direction. Far from a series of unlistenable dirges, it has a soothing ambience, with much of the violence that is usually associated with such post-apocalyptic scenarios left to the imagination. Think McCarthy’s The Road minus the explicit brutality, all doomed love and snatches of painful sentiments. This is all captured much better than I am able in the beautiful trailer below:

The resulting sound lands somewhere between the emotionally charged aesthetics of bedroom pop artists such as Arrange and the male-female vocals of Stars or A Weather. I have seen some criticism in reviews regarding the album’s length (around 55 minutes), but I think this is unfair. It is very hard to find an album that so successfully engages the listener in its concept and I found myself lost in this crumbling world for what was almost an entire hour. Listen to my current favourite track, the post-rock influenced ‘Beginnings’, below:

A Quiet Darkness is out now on Downtown Records and you can buy it now from most good retailers, or, if you live in North America, get a copy directly from the band during their upcoming tour. Check the dates here.

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