Songs from a Loft

As accomplished, lush, and appealing, and arguably even more fully self-contained, Anderida was not as texturally cohesive as Peter Lacey's prior two albums, mainly because, now in greater control of his artistry, the singer/songwriter took more stylistic and compositional turns, experimenting with synth orchestrations, liturgical a cappella sections, down-home gospel/blues intonations, and lilting music hall whimsy. In that regard, it was something of a transitional effort, but the album's range of musical exploration handsomely paid off in this masterful fourth chapter in Lacey's ongoing excavation of landscapes material, emotional, and spiritual. Songs From a Loft is every bit the snow globe of an album its older siblings were: lovely and cloistered, a world preserved in amber, one that resembles in all regards yet remains hauntingly distinct from your own. In retrospect, like the English Romantic pre-Impressionist J.M.W. Turner, there has always been in Lacey's music something of the artist painting the light obsessively over and over again, with each canvas coming closer to his vision of its ethereal properties and aesthetic quirks. That still exists here, but Songs From a Loft is a breakthrough. The album has all the easy, tuneful charm of Lacey's earlier albums, sure, with the risk-taking of Anderida; but for the first time, it seems pale to describe this wonderful build up of brush strokes as pop music, and is only so in the same way that, say, Nick Drake's Bryter Layter can be characterized as such. Finally, all his old (and some new) influences are so fluidly integrated that it would be diminishment to Lacey's own acumen and proficiency to reference them. And, improbable as it seems considering the quality of his prior work, the songwriting is even richer and more mysterious, both in its emotional and melodic vicissitudes. Song after song here has an abstract, almost art-song quality, from the gentle Odyssean hello of "Sandman" and his characteristically delicate piano balladry ("More Than Wonderful," "Sunrise") to fantastic mood pieces like "The Outermost Inn" and "River Round," yet each flows organically. The melodies throughout find their own unorthodox paths and directions, unwinding at measured paces and according to often complex (though always accessible) longitudes, while Lacey gives a multifaceted vocal performance and the production has a finish far more deep-cured, cozy, and surprising than any of its predecessors. Magnificent. It soars.