Loma

This new project from Shearwater's Jonathan Meiburg signals serious sonic intent but wears its experiments lightly. [Apr 2018, p.96]

As intense as music can be, this record may be quiet but it isn't for the faint-hearted. [Mar 2018, p.111]

The result is a melding of energies that is both fragilely beautiful and extraordinarily resilient.

The stark and brutally frank "I Don't Want Children" impresses with its sonic intimacy, as does the mercurial "Sundog," one of a few selections that utilizes the sounds of the remote location's flora and fauna--wind through the trees, birds chirping, and dogs barking in the distance--lending the proceedings a bucolic, almost Terrence Malick-ian vibe, and adding even more mystery to what is truly a singular piece of work.

Loma is also the product of atypical conditions, written and recorded as the marriage of two of its members was dissolving. The trio seem to have leaned in to that situation: Loma captures the intimacy of such heightened circumstance with layered, compelling nuance.

Despite the collaboration behind its making, it’s rife with loneliness; Cross tends to sing as though she’s in an infinitely empty room, and Duszynski’s production amplifies the effect. But from that alienation arises a way forward.

Loma doesn’t offer us the moment where the lines converge (i was never good at geometry) but it reaches for something more substantive: catharsis. Funnily enough, it sneaks up behind them as they’re looking elsewhere.

The band keeps a beautiful juxtaposition between major flourishes and minor dirges while the noise and dissonance never removes itself from the crevices of the songs.