(2021) Damon & Naomi - A Sky Record


Review:
Dreamy indie folk duo Damon & Naomi‘s relationship with Japanese psychedelic institution Ghost stretches back to their first live performances and their immaculate 2000 collaborative album Damon & Naomi with Ghost. The two entities complement each other nicely, with Damon & Naomi’s hushed beauty weaving into the slightly harder edges of Ghost’s softly acid-washed sounds. At some point Ghost guitarist Michio Kurihara became Damon & Naomi’s unofficial third member, and the three players reactivate their chemistry for A Sky Record. Following a Japanese tour in November of 2019, the three friends entered a studio in Tokyo and recorded the instrumentals that would eventually become A Sky Record. Shortly thereafter, the earliest phases of the COVID-19 lockdown began, and back in the states, Damon & Naomi ruminated on how strange the passing of time felt in quarantine, funneling the uneasiness and stillness of their new reality into the lyrics for these new songs. Opening track “Oceans in Between” is one of the album’s strongest and most straightforward tracks, with Naomi Yang singing simple, graceful melodies with just a hint of sadness over a backdrop of gentle acoustic guitars and glittering electric guitar ornamentation from Kurihara. The doleful “Sailing By” is similar, with Damon Krukowski singing lead over an instrumental not too far removed from the slow-paced melodic drifting that made Galaxie 500 so captivating. Kurihara’s presence sometimes pushes the songs from sleepy reflection into more psychedelic territory. The shadowy “Between the Wars” is guided by his laser-pointer guitar leads, and album standouts “How I Came to Photograph Clouds” and “The Aftertime” are both slow-building anthems of pastoral acid folk, held together by Kurihara’s tasteful playing. Damon & Naomi’s gifts for crafting subtle and atmospheric dream pop have been apparent since their earliest days, but there’s a heightened sense of disquiet that flows throughout A Sky Record. It’s a unique document of reflections a time that felt suspended, and at points its sadly beautiful atmospheres feel outside of time completely.





Track Listing:
1.Oceans in Between 04:05
2.Between the Wars 04:10
3.The Gift 05:33
4.Sailing By 04:50
5.Split Screen 04:04
6.Season Without Time 05:01
7.Midnight 02:53
8.Invincible 03:49
9.How I Came to Photograph Clouds 05:21
10.The Aftertime 04:13


Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, indie-folk
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits