The prolific Virginian guitarist Daniel Bachman has explored many different styles as both a performer and a producer, but he’s never made an album like Almanac Behind. In a message to Bandcamp followers, Three Lobed Recordings calls the project “sort of audio diary recording and reflecting Bachman’s interactions with and thoughts on man-made climate change” but also “so much more.” They’re right that Almanac Behind both lives up to and transcends its core conceit. It’s one of the most stirring and singular albums I’ve heard this year, experimental yet approachable and brimming with quiet, churning tension.

A collage of ambient noise, found sound, sparsely plucked banjo, disintegrating guitar loops, droning keyboards, and more, Almanac Behind coheres into a bleary portrait of life on a planet in flux. Various outside contributions are stitched into the mix, but this is one person’s vision, startling and soothing all at once. It feels elemental, like the crumbling nature it’s intended to evoke. As Bachman put it in a statement of his own, “The hiss of fire, the crack of thunder, and the silence of blackout. Howling wind, hard rain, and the force of moving water. Sounds which are inherently familiar to everyone on Earth experiencing climate breakdown and its effect on their communities. This is the music of
Almanac Behind.”

Listen below.

Almanac Behind is out now on Three Lobed. Buy it here.