piece of nocturnal elegance, where a small flurry of butterfly ride cymbal and piano try to mate in the air and arching drones bisect swelling strings like ships out of fog, “Microman” is indicative of the sound and the feel of John Alexander Ericson’s enchanting aural journal Songs For Quiet Souls. Other entries, such as “Subnation” see you stroll through moonlit alleyways: a distended cacophony of celestial bell tones seeping through mantelpieces, piano chords plodding like tiny grains of ice rattling shrubs, and hazy ambient textures wafting in a manner akin to late night steam rising off a bowery sidewalk. “Vampires in searchlights”, one of the finest songs on the disc, is a pale faced, timid and exquisitely fraught piece which coalesces siren calls, plangent chimes, crisply fluctuating digital percussion and the gentle quiver of acoustic guitar into an iridescent coherence.

Songs For Quiet Souls veers between languid, open-ended compositions and tightly knit songs, cradled by rhythm. Even so, these melodic motifs rise organically from within their circling harmonic patterns free from heavy-handed programming, allowing the listener to focus closely on the instruments. What began as an attempt at a rather sparse album takes on enough structural twists and dynamic augmentation to satisfy those who seek novel sounds, while, at the same time, sketching melodies that will entice the traditionalists.

Throughout, electronic and organic threads twist together, tug apart, unravel, knot and gnarl, similar to multiple radio signals bleeding together on a long drive at night. The only minor quibble, which may vex a certain taste, is the continual dirge-like thematic hues embedded in these ambient atmospheres, hues that remind one of Labradford’s Mi Media Maranja. Along the way, contributions by Barbara Morgenstern, Lisa Veit and Susie Van der Meer are found by way of backing vocals, and their clean, clear voices luckily add brighter colours and more expansive horizons. Ericson, himself, has an appealing voice capable of shifting timbres, from gruff and whispery to rather shrill and strained. His lyrics, sown together during nights spent in various local bars, opt for straightforward and honest declarations, confessions and ponderings, rather than poetic metaphor, as were occasionally found in his previous efforts under the guise of The Northern Territories.

But like those efforts, Songs For Quiet Souls is a well-paced outing. “Too Cold to Kiss” is embroidered by lonely sonorous bell sequences, which resembles marbles rattling in a bottle and wraithlike cello in a template of complex harmony and polyrhythmic shifts, whilst “A World You’ll Never Reach”, the album’s climax, is quite triumphant in its momentary realization. After a brief introduction the song traverses through the refrain: “Maybe it’s only Saturday night / Maybe it’s not that special / But maybe I feel like coming down / I still believe we’re on our own / And that side won’t die here / It’s always easier to let go”, thereafter giving way to an echoing guitar that rises above the silk-spun synthetic orchestration like a shaft of sunlight through an overcast sky. An admirable effort, Songs For Quiet Souls exhibits an attention to textural detail and low-key bravura in the development of quietude.