Richard Buckner Surrounded LP

2013 release from the critically acclaimed singer/songwriter. In the time since Our Blood was released and after a few long tours, Richard Buckner attempted to work on writing short stories but found himself drawn back into the music room. The evidence of his time in the writer's chair is clear in the dense, lovely prose of Surrounded. The album's liner notes include text-embedded lyrics, a technique Buckner employed on his earlier albums Since and Impasse, but this marks the first time he used the songs' extended story to construct the album's overall view and track sequence.

Putting aside the regular tool kit of guitars and pianos, Buckner wrote all nine compositions here with the uncommon instrumentation of an electronic autoharp and an octave-shifting pedal, fleshing the tunes out for recording with more familiar instrumentation. The result could definitely be seen as ambient Americana, with cloudy electronic textures filling in the usually empty spaces in his spare and lonely folk tunes. The process is especially exciting on tracks like 'Foundation,' where loops of backwards guitar tones and organ drones support Buckner's driving acoustic instruments and self-harmonizing.

For 20 years, Richard Buckner has elusively drifted through alt-country, electric folk, acoustic rock. Over the past decade, he has shrouded his abstract singer/songwriter music with vast, ominously serene arrangements. But no matter which way Buckner tacks, he always contrasts imagery so nonfigurative it seems shaped from vapor with tactile, oaken music. His deep-grained acoustic guitar playing is splintery as a raw plank. His voice is a long gnarled shape with a silky finish, like a sea-polished branch, and gives a roughshod impression that belies its smooth range and secure pitch. Its heaviness is most affecting when it floats vulnerably high to breathe out the merest hints of a narrative, as on 'Portrait', one of many gorgeously charged songs on new discography highlight Surrounded.