Rivulets

Sometimes, you find music that you feel completely at home with. For me, Rivulets is that kind of band. The core of Rivulets is singer/songwriter Nathan Amundsen, who has been making music since the end of the 90's. The very first song I heard by Rivulets was "Get out alive". That song always elicits mixed feelings in me. Reverb and echo dominate the tune, a song that borders on ambience. Tiny creaks of the acoustic guitar. Drone. Hints of piano. The singing is soothing and frightening at the same time. Amundsen's minimal arrangement (esp. on the earlier albums) evokes something unsettling, something scary-yet-to-come. His lyrics are simple, and taken by themselves they may seem quite trivial. But Amundsen's voice unravel layers of emotion while singing simple lines such as "I miss my grandparents." Corny? Well, listen to the music first. The first two records sound as if recorded in a church and one of them actually was. His records share the same kind of ghostly quality as I've come across on Jason Molina (the guy from Songs; Ohia) albums. If I would sum up what his music is like I would choose the word glacial. On his new album, You are my home, Amundsen has, at least to some extent, left his previous minimal arrangements behind for a much lusher and more full-fledged sound picture. Embellished. As one reviewer puts it: "Nathan seems to have traded some mystery for more efficiency, some subtlety for more clarity, and some depth for more immediacy." For me, this new turn in the soundscapes was a little disappointing (I am actually kosher enough to detest the inclusion of actual, proper drumming), but I am looking forward to hearing what he'll do next. And the album is by no means bad, it just lacks the magic of the first two ones.

Listen to "Steamed glass" from Debridement and be amazed. What a great song.

If you want to compare his music to anything, then I'd mention José Gonzales, Low, Red house painters and Mark Hollis. And Soul whirling somewhere. But his music is, I think, not possible to imagine based on a list of references. The atmospheres his music conjures up are something special.