Samara Lubelski: The Fleeting Skies

It's fair to say that alphabetizing one's record collection irrespective of genre has its advantages. After all, it can be difficult to figure out exactly how to file the oeuvres of those artists who ply myriad sonic trades. Take New York multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and singer-songwriter Samara Lubelski. As a onetime and sometime member of ensembles such as the loping communal-music ensemble the Tower Recordings, the quietly intense Sonora Pine, Germany's proggy Metabolismus, and the frenetic Pacer, Lubelski has found herself saddled with musical terms such as "lo-fi," "math rock," "slow core," and "free folk." Yet she has bridged much of this terminology with The Fleeting Skies, a statement that encompasses all of her previous work and also offers up significant new directions.

Released on vinyl (replete with handmade jackets) by Minneapolis's De Stijl, The Fleeting Skies is a far cry from Lubelski's debut album, In the Valley (Com 7--edition of 99), a Fluxus-inspired mélange of violin and feedback drones having more in common with the dense sound pieces of Takehisa Kosugi than the scrabbly heritage of solo violin improvisation (Philip Wachsmann, Leroy Jenkins). To isolate and extend the violin's possibilities is at once grand and elemental, an exploration of resonance and timbre that is anything but routine. The Fleeting Skies is nearly an about-face: For all intents and purposes, it is a pop record. To be sure, the intricate guitar parts found in the work of Tower and their ilk are still present; ditto the insistent yet off-kilter rhythms. But the difference is this: Rather than stemming from a freeform approach, these elements are used to bolster lush (and dare I say catchy) songcraft. The gauzy, dreamy pop textures in "Keeper of Beauty" exemplify this change of focus, as do simple touches like a duet for acoustic guitar and celeste on "Now Morning's Calling." In essence, this is an investigation of "form" to follow that of "sound." Lubelski hasn't often sung on previous recordings, so The Fleeting Skies is a rare treat, offering airy vocals similar to those of Linda Perhacs and other figures of the American psychedelic folk underground of the 1970s. With this synthesis of vanguard mettle and sunny-yet-melancholy orchestral folk, Lubelski has made the musical statement that many of her peers will wish they'd made.