A-Sun Amissa: Desperate In Her Heavy Sleep (Gizeh)

This collection of five tracks tows the post-rock line in a way that will sound familiar to anyone who’s a fan of the pseudo-genre’s mainstays like Labradford. Over the span of its hour of music, the dynamics are fairly even, less loud-soft than an act like Godspeeed! You Black Emperor or Mogwai, drowsier and gloomier in a way that is simultaneously comforting and melancholy. It sort of picks up the torch Labradford’s A Stable Reference or Mi Media Naraja, with reverberated, clear guitar playing, overtones of feedback and organ drones, augmented at times with violin. At times the trio have a dirgelike stride, such as on the repetitive guitar and violin cycles of “A Hungover Whisper: Thin Light Failure / Decay,” the expansive 17-minute centerpiece of the album, but at others they strike gold with something more purely sublime. “Ceremony,” for instance, closes out the album in a more traditionally ambient, radiant way, tragically beautiful and haunting. “Dislocated Harmony: Into Small Cold Eyes / Several Miles Above” is also gorgeous, a shimmering wall of tension that builds and then slowly decays. For those who like their instrumental music on the somber side, it’s well worth a listen. I picked it up directly from the Gizeh site, and so should you.

Buy it: Gizeh | Bleep | Boomkat | Amazon | iTunes