Disquiet

Sophrosyne‘s poppy track “The Cave of Montesinos” is a kind of songwriting as sine wave. It follows an arc from simple and quiet to thick, if not loud, and back to simple and quiet again, beginning with the thrum of bass and a harpsichord-like dissonance and slowly building, with rhythms being added — first a steady downbeat, then the sort of reverb-as-percussion that Johnny Marr instilled in the Smiths, by which time a host of melodic elements are vying for semi-prominence. And then, subtly at first, but then incontrovertibly, each of those elements disappears, as if down the drain. The track (file here) is available from the website of Soutrane Records (soutrane.com, under the “artists” page) and from “music” page of Sophrosyne’s own site (sophrosyne.net). Sophrosyne is Jason van Pelt, and his site features several other MP3 files, as well as a flash animation for a more upbeat track, titled “Happiness in Yellow.”

By Marc Weidenbaum