The Departing of a Dream Vol. III: Juliet

"You can't hold on to things," Loren Connors says. "With great happiness comes great sorrow." So brings us to "Departing of a Dream Vol. III: Juliet." Like the previous volumes, "Juliet" is a tribute of sorts; and here the focus is clearly love, the kind of love willing to face desolation and ultimately death. Recorded in Connors' Brooklyn apartment, his electric guitar emits a pulsing web of blues notes that settle against the utterly intimate human ambience of a creaking chair, tumbling objects, smoke curled absence, and his signature canvas of tape hiss. The story of Juliet and her Romeo is told in a lyrical outpouring that Connors has rarely shown in recent years, a style associated which his "Rooms" and "Evangeline" albums. Though the 20-minute album opener contains a devastating core of mire and foreboding that only Connors can create.