While it’s rare for someone dealing in almost exclusively instrumental music to feel like they have a singular voice, Trevor Shelley de Brauw has achieved it. Regardless of the project—be it Pelican, RLYR, Chord, or any other—it’s easy to see his perspective come through. For the first record released under his own name, Uptown, de Brauw spent a decade working on and off, collecting sonic pieces until they composed a bigger picture. Ahead of Uptown’s February 10 release on The Flenser, The A.V. Club is streaming “From The Black Soil Poetry And Song Sprang,” a lengthy ambient work that swells in and out effortlessly, taking de Brauw’s thick, pummeling guitar tone and using its distortion to achieve calm. It’s a meditative piece that shows a different side of de Brauw, but one that’s plenty welcome in his oeuvre.
Pre-orders for Uptown are available now.