Ian William Craig - Red Sun Through Smoke [130701 / Fat Cat Records Promo]

Scheduled for release via the Fat Cat Records offspring 130701 on March 20th, 2k20 is "Red Sun Through Smoke", the new album by Vancouver's Ian William Craig which lends its title from things the artist experienced around the time of cataclysmic wildfires encircling the city of Kelowna, representing the starting point of a series of emotionally intense events in his life, including both love and death and things beyond. With lyrics kind of randomly drawn from his very own diary entries and the piano as main instrument accompanied by improvised tape loop devices oftentimes providing additional layers of crackling background noise we see Ian William Craig provide an intimate snapshot of the emotional state he was in and went through, revealing ultimate fragility and tenderness over the course of ten tracks and fourty minutes, with tracks like "Weight" or "Take" and many others catering to those loving slightly blurred out multilayered vocal harmonies from the very depths of their heart whilst pieces like "Condx QRN", by far our favorite cut on the album, explore an amalgamation of harmonics and extreme distortion levels to a certain extent whilst the "Last Of Lantern Oil" provides a playful, yet inward looking take on stripped down, decaying crystalline piano layerings for dreams experienced through one's inner prism of mental perception whereas "Open Like A Loss" even introduces surprisingly heavy and apocalyptic Doom Metal riffing to a well brooding, spine-tingling effect.