In the uncertainty between dreams and reality, there's a moment before waking when images blur into a glassy-eyed soup. Originally released on cassette in January and now seeing wider release, Hungry Cloud Darkening's "I Am Seen" embraces that beautiful unease on the trio's forthcoming Glossy Recall.
If the voices and atmosphere sound familiar, the members of Hungry Cloud Darkening were the backing band on Mount Eerie's 2012 albums Clear Moon and Ocean Roar, not to mention the resulting tour and a stripped-down, "absurd concert to nobody" that we filmed in early 2013. Allyson Foster takes the lead vocal here, a whisper-quiet soprano over a bouncing bassline and muddied percussion made sinister by droning keyboards. It's part bummer Beach Boys, part Twin Peaks soundtrack (good timing, given the cult TV show's imminent return), in that moment when the mind's eye can't quite make sense of what stares down at you from the ceiling.
Glossy Recall comes out Oct. 7 on Off Tempo.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.