An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death

Returning exactly one year after dropping one of the most consistently gorgeous ambient rock records of the last decade with 2003's Lambent Material, Eluvium's Matthew Cooper follows it up with, well, one of the most consistently gorgeous neoclassical records of the last quarter century. "An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death" began as most Eluvium's pieces do, sitting on a bench in front of a baby grand piano in Cooper's apartment. The difference this time was that the songs started to grow legs, and eventually ran away together until an entire album of haunting, intimate suites were made for solo piano. Cooper's longtime influences of baroque classical and modern minimalist composers shines bright over the brief-but-sweeping half hour length of this record, and never once does he give in to the wall-of-noise temptations that made "Lambent Material" so oceanic. Instead of drifting away in a sea of swelling guitars and drones, you're graced with a rare display of Cooper's unaccompanied piano movements.