Noveller: Glacial Glow

Label: Saffron Recordings

As in, that which may follow Desert Fires. Sound Fix fave Noveller delivers her fourth album, Glacial Glow, her most meditative effort yet. Crystallizing a direction in which she's been moving over her past few outings, Noveller -- also a visual artist of some note -- uses her guitar and its infinite possibilities in a dramatic painterly style, and her ear for color, contrast, space and shading is every bit as keen as her eye. "Alone Star" traces a guitar figure against a background of gently shifting tonality, while "Tuesday Before Poland" lives up to the audio diary suggested by its title. Throughout Glacial Glow you catch glimpses of the striking noise for which Noveller first made her name, though these tactics are now deployed with restraint and in small details. Fans of ambient psychedelia that doesn't make you do the work -- in other words, calming, beautiful music that drifts but with impulse and intent -- need to hear Noveller now.