Alicia Merz released in 2010 and 2011 two albums, an EP and a collaboration album. The dark esoteric atmospheres with fragile vocals are from a high quality but too much output in a short time is not always the best way to convince. She convinces us now with the newest Birds of Passage album This Kindly Slumber. Only seven songs in 40 minutes and calm ambient atmospheres that are fastened in mature song writing.

In ‘Ashes to Ashes’ the slumbering noises slowly are waking up with a moaning voice of Merz in the back. The calm ambient and drones are still hidden behind a fog; in ‘Belle de Jour’ and ‘And All of your Dreams’ the fog is slowly going away and the mystical and warm phrases from Merz are catching your ears more and more.
 

This ride is continued in the next tracks; however with some fantasy you also hear new wave influences from the eighties in ‘Yesterday’s Stains’. The dark buzzing sound is looping in a slower rhythm as in the eighties but together with the vocals it gives the same vibe. ‘Lonesome Tame’ is the perfect dreaming end of the record. Ten minutes of brooding ambient sounds and those are put under a black blanket but also with a glimpse of hope around.