David Granström - Empty Room (2021)

Warm, immersive blankets of synthesized drone engineered with academic precision by Swedish composer and sound artist David Granström. Cinematic, but never cloying.

'Empty Room' is Granström's full-length debut, and presents a detailed picture of his studies in harmonic simplicity and spatiotextural complexity. If that sounds like a mouthful, a quick listen will no doubt dissolve any hesitance: the album is almost effortlessly beautiful, allowing delicate chords to overlap each other slowly to play on our emotional triggers, but only gently.

The album's five long pieces blend electronic and acoustic sounds, mostly concentrating on synthesis but occasionally introducing processed string plucks or subtle field recordings. It's all high end stuff, with traces of Cocteau Twins' dream pop shimmer in amongst the weighty, Lawrence English-esque atmospheres.