Recorded in 2014 for a summer tour tape, “Aviv” is a billowing, impressionist composition that relies on pure ambience to generate its mood and movement. Narrator provide no rhythmic structure for listeners to latch onto, only a beautiful, almost listless melody that tugs at you with gentle insistence. Like a lot of good atmospheric music, it’s the small details and tiny contradictions that make it work; for instance, the manner in which the glacial pacing rubs up against the languid shift of warm tones. Depending on your frame of mind, it can strike you as either tragically somber or majestically joyous in the way that projections of beauty can often arouse and uplift the spirit.

In either case, this is music that isn’t meant to be listened to in a hurry, and neither will it recede into the background. Narrator’s exploration of drifting soundscapes sees them adapting ambient textures and timbres to fit into a compositional arrangement that accentuates its song-oriented format rather than unspooling as so much electronic fog.

It’s funny how often an artist’s long neglected cast-offs reflect some of their most evocative work and that is certainly the case here. Despite arriving two years after its creation, “Aviv” is as dreamy and compelling as anything Narrator has ever made.

Narrator will perform on Friday, July 8 at Eyedrum Art & Music Gallery for the premiere of Extraction Blues, a short sci-fi film by Jesse Kray. Doors open at 8:30 p.m. Admission is FREE.

More Info
Bandcamp: narrating.bandcamp.com
Facebook: @narratornarrating