Connor Armbruster has a spectacular new album out today. Can I Sit Here finds the Troy, New York composer and violinist forgoing the acoustic sounds of his 2022 Dear Life Records debut Masses, recorded inside a church, in favor of distorted electric violin. The music takes many forms, incorporating elements of post-rock, noise-rock, shoegaze, and experimental classical in service of Armbruster’s unique vision. Many of these instrumentals could be mistaken for guitar, but the use of violin lends a slightly alien quality to the droning, decaying beauty.

“It is a reflection on loss and the feelings that follow a death, the delicate balance between despair, celebration, nostalgia, isolation, and kinship,” explains the album’s Bandcamp blurm.

Can I Sit Here is a truly wonderful album, one that gobsmacked me from the beginning and kept me enthralled until the end. Sink into it below.

Can I Sit Here is out now on Dear Life.