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Romance, “Love Is Colder Than Death” (Ecstatic, 2025)

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The latest release from this oft-fascinating (and anonymous) London-based project is billed as a “noir ambient masterpiece” and a “fever dream in the lineage of Dashiel Hammett and David Lynch.” That paints a pretty accurate picture of what to expect, as Love Is Colder Than Death is a shifting, elegant, and sensuously hallucinatory dreamscape of haunting torch song melodies, smoldering femme fatales, lazily curling cigarette smoke, and snatches of classic movie soundtracks enigmatically shrouded in a fog of distressed tape hiss and murk.

Unsurprisingly, The Caretaker & Pinkcourtesyphone are close reference points, but Romance’s vision has a more narcotically seductive and hopefully sentimental tone than either—like I am experiencing the troubled dreams of a young starlet who has just gotten her first glimpse of Hollywood’s dark underbelly. Moreover, the spell that Romance casts is a gorgeously immersive and evocative one, as I often feel like I am living inside a luminous black & white version of Mulholland Drive when I listen to this album on headphones.

The opening “Too Much Love” is a prime example of that vision, as a lovesick and sultry disembodied chanteuse sings “Too Much Love” from South of St. Louis in a hallucinatory haze of ghostly ambiance with an occasional splash of discordant piano. “Farewell My Lovely” is another smoldering stunner in that vein, as it resembles one of Carl Stone’s recent delirious chopped-up pop song experiments applied to the slowed and pitch-shifted piano jazz of a lonely cabaret where it is always 3am.

While that particular vibe was exactly what I was hoping for, I was pleasantly surprised by some of the eclectic detours that Romance takes along the way. For example, “Spellbound” has a lushly romantic spaghetti Western vibe that conjures a doomed gunfighter saying farewell to one true love before his final showdown.Elsewhere, the warmly beautiful “Two Of A Kind” feels like the theme music for a wide-eyed ingénue who just arrived in Hollywood with just a suitcase and a whole lot of hopes and dreams. Stylistically, it suggests gorgeously dream-like, soft-focus Celer-style loop mesmerism coaxed from the locked groove of a sentimental old Western soundtrack.

The album’s most achingly beautiful piece, however, is  “Kiss The Blood Off My Hands,” which sounds like a ghostly, hiss-soaked recording of a rapturous classical mass that leaves hazy vapor trails in its wake that linger like a mysterious perfume. The whole album is essentially one inspired motif after another though and it all flows together beautifully from the first note til the last (the slowly dissolving violin loop of closing “End Credits” evokes the kitschy horror of Carnival of Souls, for example). 

This is honestly my favorite Romance album by a landslide, as it transcends the  ambient genre so beautifully that it feels like it could have been an iconic classic film soundtrack in its own right. Or, more accurately, it is an album so rich with light, shadow, emotional depth, mood, and mystique that it feels like it is actually a film itself (and quite a fucking good one too). Love Is Colder Than Death is an absolutely mesmerizing headphone rabbit hole. 

Listen here.

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The House in the Woods, “Spectral Corridor” (Ecstatic, 2021)

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This appears to be the first major release for this long-running (if fitful) Pye Corner Audio side project, as Martin Jenkins’ previous albums under this alias have all been limited CD-Rs. It certainly feels like a suitably strong statement for such an occasion. In the words of Ecstatic, Spectral Corridor “treads the line between occult soundtrack and zonked out space jam,” which is a fairly apt characterization of Jenkins’ latest aesthetic evolution even if it does not quite do justice to the sublime beauty of some of these pieces. 

According to Jenkins, this project draws its inspiration from “field recordings of walks through forests wielding finger chimes, long slow tape loops, treated guitars, elegiac organ tones, free running oscillator banks and chance operations,” which mostly translates into slowly pulsing drones, subtle psychedelic touches, and a pervading air of shadowy mystery. That said, Spectral Corridor sounds considerably different from its more lush 2013 predecessor Bucolica, as Jenkins clearly took the “spectral” part of the album title very seriously, distilling his synth-centric ambient/drone to a wonderfully haunted-sounding and elegantly brooding suite of gently phantasmagoric soundscapes.

The album opens with a plinky yet insistent drum machine pattern that is quickly joined by a seesawing pulse of deep drones. Eventually, the piece (“Tone Intervals”) gets fleshed out with warmer harmonies, submerged melodic fragments, and a woozily oscillating thrum. It is a perfectly executed slow burn, as Jenkins masterfully weaves together a handful of simple themes into a hypnotically swaying reverie that slowly builds in intensity and rhythmic complexity. For that one piece, Jenkins seems like he is operating on a plane of inventive minimalism that few others can touch, as the purring, quavering, and gently heaving rhythm elevates a good piece into quite a great one. 

The following “Spectral Corridor Part 4” is another highlight, albeit a very different and far more dramatic one. For me, it evokes a cold sky full of eerily pulsing and twinkling stars, but it also sounds like some killer early ’70s space synth guy scoring a film about a macabre bit of forest folklore. Yet another gem is the tenderly languorous dreamscape “Quadratic,” which unfolds like warm waves lapping the shore of an enchanted grotto. It is by far the most nakedly beautiful piece on the album and feels like a perfectly crafted loop that could extend forever, but Jenkins also performs some neat textural sleight of hand, as it steadily takes on a more hissing and quivering character as it folds. 

To my ears, the rest of the album does not quite hit the same heights, but it is impressively solid nonetheless, as Jenkins alternates between more minimal drone pieces and something akin to Tangerine Dream scoring a scary and intense film set in a space station or futuristic city (a description that applies to much of the four-part title suite). Fans of retro-futurist synth atmospheres will especially dig the latter, as that is one realm where Jenkins truly excels.

Samples can be found here.

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Abul Mogard, “In Immobile Air” (Ecstatic, 2021)

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The latest album from this enigmatic Serbian composer is a significant departure from his previous work, as these five pieces were primarily composed on an old upright piano during lockdown. While the usual synthesizers are conspicuously relegated to a background role, In Immobile Air is nevertheless still very “Mogard” in both its central theme (memory) and its meditative and melancholy mood. It admittedly took me a bit longer to warm to this side of Mogard’s artistry than usual (the piano is not my favorite instrument), but a few pieces capture him in especially inspired form and feel like significant breakthroughs in the manipulation of harmony and overtones. The other pieces are intriguingly adventurous as well, inhabiting a murky shadow realm somewhere between Harold Budd and blackened, desolate dronescapes.

Partially inspired by an unnamed Italo Calvino story, both the song titles and the general mood of In Immobile Air evoke the bleak grandeur of a rocky beach on an overcast day. For the most part, Mogard paints the album’s various somber scenes with a balance of gently rippling minor key piano melodies and deep, brooding drones, but that balance can shift quite a lot between songs. The darkly beautiful title piece is probably the most equal balance of the two elements, as a sad, tumbling piano motif lazily repeats over a gnarled and heaving backdrop of synth swells. 

The following “Clouds,” on the other hand, abandons any recognizable piano in favor of dense, blown-out, and downright seismic waves of drone. Nevertheless, it is an unexpectedly melodic piece, as the roiling miasma cyclically resolves into a repeating bass tone. As befits the title, “Clouds” calls to mind a sky full of dense black clouds that periodically breaks to reveal faint rays of warming light. It is quite a mesmerizing piece, but it is later eclipsed by the album’s centerpiece “Sand.” Like “In Immobile Air,” it is centered upon a tender, minor key piano melody, but the brilliant bit slowly emerges from the background, as massive, buzzing oscillations swell from the murky swirl of lingering decay to steal the spotlight. The album’s two more drone-based pieces are a bit less memorable, but In Immobile Air‘s highlights are impressive and unique enough to make it a strong album.

Samples can be found here.

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Abul Mogard, “Kimberlin” (Ecstatic, 2019)

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This has been an unusually eclectic and prolific year for Abul Mogard, as he has followed up his first ever remix album (And We Are Passing Through Silently) with his first ever soundtrack album in the form of Kimberlin. On paper, the transition from Mogard’s usual fare into soundtrack territory makes a lot more intuitive sense than turning him loose on deconstructing Aïsha Devi jams, but his innovation in bridging that stylistic gulf was a large part of why Passing was such an absolute left-field delight. The pleasures of Kimberlin are arguably bit more modest by comparison, as it falls into more expected aesthetic terrain and feels more like an EP than a full-length (by Mogard standards, anyway). In terms of quality, however, it does not fall at all short of his usual level of sublime mastery, culminating in a final slow-burning epic that can hold its own against any of his previous work.

Abul Mogard does not seem like an artist who embarks upon any project lightly, nor does he seem like someone who would feel comfortable releasing (or associating himself with) middling or uninspired material. Consequently, it is not surprising at all that his first film-related project is quite an intriguing one. Kimberlin is a 24-minute experimental film by Duncan Whitley set on the English isle of Portland. In the local dialect, “kimberlin” is term for an outsider or stranger living on the island and Whitley notes that the film was made in the wake of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union, so the idea of “the other” is presumably a guiding theme.

Lamentably, I have not seen the film (it debuted at Café Oto last month), but I suspect it delves into something considerably more fascinating and mysterious than mere provincial xenophobia, as Whitley was drawn to the island by the discovery of “an underground cinema cavern” and the canisters of super 8 film inside it. Naturally, a central focus of the film is speculation about who could have been behind such a curious and secretive endeavor, but the tone of the soundtrack is largely a bleakly beautiful one that seems inspired by the island itself. The music has a haunted and majestic feel that evokes a desolate, rocky, and windswept landscape that harbors disturbing secrets: if the unearthed canisters had turned out to be full of ghosts rather than film, Mogard would not have needed to change his score much at all.

The slowly swelling opener “Flooding Tide” feels like a return to some of Mogard’s earlier work, as it unfolds as a brooding, murky, and roiling dronescape that seems to rumble up from beneath the earth. Or, based on its title, like a heavy tide rolling in to envelop a secluded path on a lonely coast. It does a fine job of setting the mood for the album (and presumably the film as well), but the three pieces that follow are the true heart of Kimberlin. The most immediately striking piece is the eerily beautiful “I Watched The See The Fields The Sky,” which unfolds as a lazily seesawing melodic figure that feels mournful, mysterious, and corroded and leaves spectral, smoldering trails in its wake. The remaining two pieces are not quite as overtly melodic, but they maintain the same feeling of smoldering and undulating in slow-motion, like a bleary red sunrise slowly burning through a thick fog.

What they lack in melody, they more than make up for in elegantly controlled and simmering tension, as Mogard allows his swaying, throbbing, and frayed drones to organically unfold and steadily accumulate impressive depth and power. The 17-minute “Playing On The Stones” is especially mesmerizing and is probably the most perfect summation of Mogard’s unique genius that I have heard to date. That does not necessarily mean that it is strongest piece that he has ever recorded (it is not, as competition is fierce). However, it is exactly the kind of piece that only he could have composed, as it displays a control, patience, and lightness of touch that verges on the supernatural. At its core, it is essentially just a single chord that lazily twists, quavers, and undergoes subtle textural transformations, yet it is nevertheless heavy as hell and so absorbing in its subtle dynamic evolution that I would happily allow it to continue increasing in power until my entire house shook and plaster rained from my ceiling.

It is no secret that I almost invariably find soundtrack albums to be exasperating and underwhelming regardless of how much I love the artist responsible, but I am delighted to report that Kimberlin has managed to transcend its intended purpose so seamlessly that all of my usual soundtrack caveats do not apply. In fact, I never would have guessed that Kimberlin even was a soundtrack if it had not been billed as such: it feels like a complete and fully formed work that stands on its own. Admittedly, a large part of that success is probably due to both Mogard’s usual aesthetic and the fact that Whitley’s film is an experimental/art film rather than a narrative one (which would have required drama and a wider palette of moods), but plenty of art films have forgettable soundtracks too. This one does not.

The only real difference between Kimberlin and A Characteristically Great New Abul Mogard Album is essentially just the duration. The album is actually longer than the film it scores, yet it still ends too soon to feel like an entirely satisfying meal (though that probably could have been remedied by simply expanding “I Watched The Sea” to three times its current length). Given that, I would probably rank Kimberlin with the Maurizio Bianchi split as “not quite among the most crucial Mogard releases, yet disproportionately wonderful for an ostensibly minor release.” Everything that I love about Abul Mogard’s work is here, even if there is slightly less of it than I would have deemed optimal. No one can wring aching beauty and deep emotion from quiet simplicity like Mogard can and Kimberlin emphatically reaffirms that.

Samples can be found here.

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Abul Mogard, “Above All Dreams” (Ecstatic, 2010)

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It was quite an unexpected and delightful surprise to get a new Abul Mogard full-length, as the unprolific Serbian composer seems to only record one or two new pieces each year (ones that get released, anyway). Apparently, Above All Dreams took three years to make though, so I guess that fits with Mogard’s extremely considered approach and rigorous quality control. Characteristically, Dreams is yet another absolutely wonderful release, but it is a bit of a departure from what I expected in some ways and it took me several listens to fully warm to it: Dreams feels more like an immersive, slow-burning epic than a batch of instantly gratifying individual highlights. As such, this release is probably not the ideal entry point to Mogard’s vision for newcomers, but devotees will find a lot to love about these transcendent reveries, as this album packs a lot of quiet intensity once its depths are fully revealed.

It feels weird to bring up hooks when describing Abul Mogard’s work, yet I am hard-pressed to think of a better or more inclusive term for the rhythmic, textural, and melodic elements that pervaded his earlier releases.There are not many of those elements to be found on Above All Dreams, which is a crucial point to address in understanding and appreciating how Mogard has evolved since his early days of trying replicate the sounds of a factory (according to lore, anyway). Since those oft-brilliant industrial beginnings, Mogard’s vision has slowly blossomed into something almost rapturous and divine, at times more closely resembling a spontaneous natural phenomenon than painstakingly crafted human compositions.

In fact, his career can almost be read as an endless march towards self-erasure. The opening “Quiet Dreams” is a particularly fine example of that, as is the following “Where Not Even,” thought the two take very different forms. On “Quiet Dreams,” it feels like a blood red sunrise is slowly burning through a mass of dark and brooding clouds. “Where Not Even,” on the other hand, resembles a woozily swooping and distorted deep space transmission that seems to feed back on itself and distort into something quite sinister (and also quite heavy in an understated way). In neither case is there much evidence of Mogard’s hand, though “Quiet Dreams” features a few well-placed sliding synth tones. Instead, both pieces feel like strange and vivid dreams that a machine might have (particularly “Where Not Even”). If they feel like compositions at all, they certainly do not seem like ones that were created on a human time scale.

It is not until the third piece, “Upon The Smallish Circulation,” that Mogard starts to creep into more musical territory (in this case, burbling deep space synth psychedelia a la prime Tangerine Dream). I suppose that makes it the closest thing the album has to a single, as there is structure and melody in its trance-inducing central theme, but it does not otherwise diverge from the album’s aesthetic in any kind of significant way: the arpeggio pattern is cool, but it is still just a backdrop for alternately hollow and sizzling rumbles from the cosmic void. While the slow-moving and elegiac “Over My Head” briefly continues that melodic trend, the two lengthy pieces that close the album return to more dreamily languorous drone territory.

The title piece captures Mogard at his most elegantly sublime, as his sustained synth tones feel like steadily massing and intertwining tendrils of smoke. Gradually, the piece builds to a somewhat conventional bit of whooshing, spacey ambient-drone, but Mogard displays some truly remarkable lightness of touch and harmonic ingenuity on the way, weaving a gorgeously swaying, fluttering, and oscillating cloud of overtones as the piece slowly coheres into its final shape.

Mogard saves his finest moment for last, however. The foundation of “The Roof Falls” is a lazily winding and heavenly organ-like melody that drifts through a haze of drones. As the title suggests, however, that lushly beautiful idyll seems like it is taking place inside a vast building that is slowly collapsing, though the creeping ruin stays just far enough away to remain an omnipresent and threatening undercurrent rather than the focus. Still, some of the textures definitely take on a fried, corroded, and gnarled character as the piece unfolds, which adds some welcome visceral bite.

While no single piece quite recaptures the aching beauty or churning, mechanized heaviness of Mogard’s best work, Above All Dreams nevertheless feels like a legitimate creative breakthrough of sorts (or at least an inspired lateral move—he certainly is not repeating himself). There has not been a change in quality so much as a change in compositional approach: Mogard’s earlier work sought to distill his vision to glittering perfection while this release stretches and slows that vision into infinity (or at least an approximation of it). As a result, I am not floored, but I am entranced. There is a sense of total immersion and steadily building cumulative power here that makes this Dreams a unique entry within Mogard’s oft-stellar canon: he casts a beguiling spell and sustains that dream state masterfully.

Samples can be found here.

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Abul Mogard, “Circular Forms” (Ecstatic, 2018)

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Recently given an much-needed reissue by Ecstatic, Circular Forms (2015) is Abul Mogard’s lone proper full-length album amidst a slow trickle of cassettes, splits, and compilation appearances. When I first heard it, I was admittedly a bit disappointed as it felt considerably less unique and revelatory than the earlier, more industrial-influenced pieces collected on Works. I have since warmed to it quite a bit, however, as “The Half-Light of Dawn” is an achingly beautiful masterpiece of simmering and haunted-sounding post-apocalyptic drone. Mogard also does a stellar job at channeling the cosmic dread of prime Tangerine Dream at one point. The rest of the album is quite enjoyable as well, but it sometimes has a bit of an uneven and transitional feel that reveals Mogard’s influences and occupies more well-established aesthetic terrain than some of his iconoclastic earlier releases.

The album opens in somber and understated fashion with “Slate-Colored Storm,” which is essentially just a murky and submerged-sounding melodic loop that languorously unfolds beneath a series of slow-motion washes of bleak synth chords. Naturally, that elegant simplicity suits the piece quite well, establishing a glacial momentum and darkly soulful foundation for Mogard’s peripheral activities. In that regard, he proves to be an absolute sorcerer at controlling tension and ingeniously transforming textures, effectively erasing all trace of himself to create a vivid, powerful, and organically unfolding scene. “Slate-Colored Storm” feels like time has slowed to an absolute crawl and a mournful and decayed tape loop is obsessively playing and re-playing the same broken melody as geysers of scorching lava erupt from the earth around it.There is nothing that feels like a man playing a synthesizer in that tableau at all, as everything feels ruined, corroded, decayed, and unreal in a profound way, as if the scene is playing out as a vision of the future that occurs long after Mogard has been reduced to dust.

The following “Bound Universe,” on the other hand, feels like a sincere homage to Tangerine Dream at their heaviest and most inhumanly futuristic, unfolding as a churning and dense synth juggernaut that surges relentlessly forward amidst a gnarled storm of rumbling drones and sizzling noise. Both pieces are legitimately wonderful.

The following “Half Light at Dawn” is the album’s achingly gorgeous heart though, resembling a lush elegy for humanity composed by a heartbroken robot. I am truly awe-struck by the intensity of emotion that Mogard is able to wring out of circuits and wires, as “Dawn” is a moaning, whimpering, and undulating feast of bleary melodies and deep, sizzling washes of chords amidst an otherworldly haze of ghostly afterimages and flickering spectres. It is absolutely pitch-perfect in every way, slowly and wearily accumulating immense power through slow-burning repetition before quietly disappearing once more into silence.

I would be hard-pressed to imagine anything that could satisfyingly follow such a sublime and crushingly beautiful piece, but Mogard gamely tries by closing the album with the epic “House on the River” (at nearly 17-minutes, it is roughly as long as everything that came before it combined). Lamentably, it is my least favorite piece on the album, yet Mogard is still operating on quite a high plane—even his less-inspired work offers some understated and singular delights. For the most part though, “House on the River” is merely a decent bit of slow-moving synth drone, as a succession of billowing chords steadily flows forward with minimal variation or evolution. Buried in the depths, however, lies a single nagging note that keeps endlessly (if faintly) pulsing beneath it all, imbuing an otherwise straightforward piece with the sense that it is merely a veil concealing something more elemental and mysterious. Sadly, that veil never lifts, but it is significant that even Mogard’s rare forays into well-traveled territory hint at being something far more than that.

It would certainly be reasonable to describe Circular Forms as Mogard’s ambient album, but it represents more of a shift and expansion in focus than a radical transformation. This vein has always run through Mogard’s work, so the most significant advance was merely that he decided to release an entire album devoted to his more slow-moving and meditative side. At this stage in his career, however, Mogard’s meditative side was still quite an eerily bleak and haunting place to be, evoking the Zen-like calm of the last human gazing sadly at a scorched and ravaged landscape (he has brightened his tone considerably since). There is a lonely beauty mingled with deep sadness here, yet the best moments of Circular Forms burrow deep enough to achieve something of a transcendent rapture. That latter part is crucial, as Mogard’s work is not oppressively sad at all—the path to heaven just happens to be unexpectedly dark one.

Listen here.
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Abul Mogard, “Works” (Ecstatic, 2018)

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According to legend, this enigmatic Serbian composer became deeply interested in music as a means of trying to recapture the sounds of the metal factory that he had worked at in Belgrade. If this 2016 collection of his early cassette releases succeeded in that aesthetic objective, that factory must have quite a terrifying edifice, as the best pieces evoke a relentless and pummeling mechanized horror akin to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. More importantly, some of these songs are absolutely mesmerizing and Mogard intersperses his lengthy industrial trance spells with some unexpectedly tender and melancholy glimpses of light. Bittersweetly, Mogard has since left this revelatory phase behind to devote himself to more overtly beautiful and transcendent fare, yet every time I put this album on, I am sucked deeper and deeper into its complex evocation of mercilessly inhuman machinery poignantly mingled with soul and bleak radiance. To some degree, I wish I had covered Works back when it came out, but I suspect it needed some time to grow on me before I could fully appreciate it for what it is: one of the true masterpieces of the last decade.

Abul Mogard’s self-titled debut initially appeared as a self-released CDr back in 2012 before being more formally reissued later that year as a cassette on Zombi’s VCO Records. Looking back, it is remarkable how fully formed, varied, and powerful his vision was even from that modest first step, as the relentlessly churning and seething “Drooping Off” remains one of the most stunning and heavy pieces in the Mogard oeuvre. The sizzling and corroded beauty of “The Purpose of Peace” is yet another essential piece, while the murky, forlorn psychedelia of Works‘ opening “Despite Faith” is not all that far behind. 

Notably, however, there are a few songs from that release that did not make it Works. The same is true of 2013’s Drifted Heaven: only three songs from each release appear here. As a result, Works is not exactly a comprehensive retrospective of Mogard’s earliest work, so much as an idealized history—here is almost no need to delve into the full cassettes because all of the strongest pieces are collected here and the less dazzling fare was culled with fairly unerring judgment. There is one notable exception, however, as the epic “Android Manouvres” did not make the cut, presumably due to its somewhat extreme length.

The three pieces from Drifted Vision wisely do not depart much from the bold aesthetic vision of Mogard’s debut, yet they do exhibit some significant advancement in his execution and compositional approach.My personal favorite is “Tumbling Relentless Heaps,” a mercilessly propulsive mechanized march of fried electronics, fluttering psychedelic flourishes, and brooding menace. The other two pieces from Drifted showcase Mogard’s more meditative side, however. “Post Crisis Remembrance” initially takes shape as a blurrily elegiac ambient reverie, but gradually darkens in tone as a rumbling undercurrent slowly swells and increasingly gnarled and distressed tones bubble up from its depths. Elsewhere, the slow-burning and achingly beautiful “Airless Linger” sounds like a lovelorn android from the future trying to replicate a great Tim Hecker album.

The final three pieces are taken from Mogard’s 2015 The Sky Had Vanished cassette, which appears in its entirety here. It is a bit more varied than the previous releases, acting as something of a bridge between Mogard’s darkly mantric factory-inspired beginnings and the more radiant, melodic fare to come. “The Sky Had Vanished,” for example, is a prime example of the former, steadily building in roiling intensity to a heavily pulsing thrum spewing forth metallic harmonics. The following “Desires Are Reminiscences By Now,” however, takes quite a different tone altogether. It is quite a quietly lovely and meditative piece, but its warmly languorous chord progression eschews all of the industrial throb and heft of the earlier work. Some corroded textures remain, thankfully, but the piece still feels like a curious anomaly—like a cloudy and regret-infused Eno pastiche.

It is still quite good, of course—it just seems like a slightly awkward first step towards crafting more nakedly beautiful and unambiguously human fare (a direction he eventually perfected with 2017’s “All This Has Passed Forever”). In any case, the true centerpiece of Sky is the 18-minute “Staring at the Sweeps of the Desert. “Stylistically, it feels like the blurring together of the other two pieces, as a deep, throbbing bass pattern provides a sense of weary forward momentum beneath a bittersweet haze of smeared and blurry synth chords. It also marks a more ambitious compositional approach, as the original theme eventually dissolves to make way for bleakly shuddering coda.

I suppose it would be overreaching a bit to say that Works is a flawless collection, but the minor flaws are irrelevant in the face of how many truly stellar pieces are assembled in just one place. Each of the individual tapes is certainly excellent, but experiencing the distillation of several years of Mogard’s best work at once is like being hit by a goddamn meteor. Songs like “Drooping Off” and “Tumbling Relentless Heaps” struck me just as profoundly as any of the previous masterpieces that have knocked me sideways over the years (Soundtracks for the Blind, All The Pretty Horses, etc.), which is an experience that has become increasingly rare as I grow older and more jaded. It is nice to know that I still have the capacity for wonder and awe, even if I do not get to use it much. Rapturous praise of the content aside, I also love the scope of this collection, as it completely encapsulates a glorious and ephemeral window in Mogard’s evolution before he moved onto newer frontiers. I love that later work as well, but the era covered here remains Mogard’s most distinctive and magical phase for me, as the “ghost in the machine” mingling of relentless industrial dread and human warmth is heavy, deep, and emotionally affecting all at once. Works is an absolutely canonical collection from an absolutely canonical artist.

Listen here.