In the Vines

VINYL FORMAT. Ray Raposa had nearly finished this follow-up to 2005's First Light's Freeze when he was mugged at gunpoint outside his Brooklyn home. This climaxed a year of depression and nomadic, nocturnal dislocation for him. Appropriately, the album is based on a Hindu fable about being trapped in an inescapable fate, with death and the limitations of our physical lives closing in from all corners. But it isn't all darkness and peril; there's a strange sense of hope and delight in the brief moments of beauty that sustain our lives. Guest appearances by Jana Hunter, Sufjan Stevens, Viking Moses, Matthew Houck (Phosphorescent), Rafter Roberts, Nonhorse (Vanishing Voice), and Nathan Delffs (Shaky Hands).