Remora – “Enamored ” – [Silber Records]

Max Level   9/3/2006   A Library, CD

Guitar and vocals by Brian John Mitchell, whose sound and approach here exemplify Silber’s “from the bedroom” aesthetic. He has a way with desperate, shattered love songs, dropping in poignant little turns of phrase every so often. The protagonist’s calm, detached vocal style sounds to me like he just might be a time bomb waiting to go off. So a sense of danger lurking. Musically, this is a distinctive blend of simple song structures and dark ambient textures, reminding us of Remora’s origin as a guitar/noise/drone project. Track 14, a long instrumental, is the most broken-hearted-sounding piece of music I’ve heard in quite a while.