The troubled sleep of piano magic zip

In another sense, however, this album follows the typical springtime arcs of renewal and re-emergence, coming after the most disappointing stretch of Piano Magic's career to date. Among the things that may have kept Piano Magic lying awake at night was a rather fruitless relationship with 4AD.

On paper, it made all the sense in the world: Gorgeous, baroque artist meets top purveyors of atmospheric, dreamy pop. Fortunately, these low-key releases return to both the quality and mood of previous Piano Magic records without sounding like a retreat or a retread.

Delicately weaving organic and electronic instruments with spectral, detached vocals from Johnson and others most notably Klima's Angele David-Guillou , The Troubled Sleep is another collection of spellbinding ruminations on loss and unrequited love. Recorded with a six-piece band, the album is probably the most rock-oriented record Johnson has ever made, carrying tinges of the brooding guitar work of Nick Cave, Low, and The Dirty Three, and its fragility-- plucking acoustic guitars often meet gently throbbing rhythms amidst spacious, almost desolate soundscapes-- belies the emotional disquiet that runs through the best of Johnson's work.

The more rock-oriented approach doesn't always play to Johnson's strengths, but it might appeal to a wider audience than his often far better musicbox electronics. From the solitary, distant cry to "Help Me Warm This Frozen Heart", to the almost Southern gothic desperation of "Speed the Road, Rush the Lights", to the haunting and unexpected release of "Luxembourg Gardens", Johnson escapes his tendency to tempt a listener's mind to wander over the course of a sometimes monolithic record.

Despite whispers that The Troubled Sleep would be the final Piano Magic record, the band recently returned to its more typically rewarding format-- the single-- with the minute, six-song Saint Marie EP. Here, the title track is re-recorded with Low's Alan Sparhawk replacing Johnson on vocals with slightly disappointing results.

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The Unwritten Law.