Eluvium is a one man ambient project. His first album recalled Brian Eno's best ambient works (not simply because it was ambient, but because it was masterfully created and absolutely great). For his second, he stepped out of those boundaries and recorded a piano album, live. The results were not nearly as engaging. His most recent, Talk Amongst the Trees finds him returning to ambient form, without rehashing the first album.
Where Eno was the best reference point on the first album, this time around feels closer to Stars of the Lid or Windy + Carl. Extended tones and looped drones bubble and layer themselves around quiet and subtle chord progressions that you can hardly detect, other than peripherally. A little beyond halfway through the album, into the fifth track, "Calm of the Cast-Light Cloud," shaking my head to keep myself awake becomes far less effective and I'm forced to either give in and drift in and out, or focus my attention on something to keep my mind awake. Three tracks make up the bulk of the album: "New Animals From the Air," "Taken" and "One." They're all given plenty of time to carefully and slowly unfold, letting each nuance run its course before the next takes over.
This is the sleepiest and most narcotic record I've gotten since Stars of the Lid's The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid.
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