The Windish Agency

Back with a second album of thoughtful new themes, Sun Airway’s Soft Fall takes us to an ethereal layer between worlds. The sonically inspiring sub-strata of Soft Fall began in songwriter/producer Jon Barthmus’ house in Philadelphia. Classical foundations were chopped, dissected, and sewn back together by a string quartet in one recording studio, with live instruments overdubbed in another, then re-edited and assembled back at home by Barthmus. David Wrench (Caribou, Bat for Lashes, Bear in Heaven) took it all to new heights with some masterful mixing.

On Soft Fall, Sun Airway’s pop songs move out of the bedroom and into cathedrals. The songs are hyper-saturated, bright and colorful, spilling from the speakers. They’re glistening, based on rich acoustic instruments and layered in synthetic sounds carried along on Barthmus’ perfect hooks. Soft Fall is a place where swirling orchestras play, cupped in the palms of your hands. It’s a place where everything belongs where it doesn’t; As Barthmus sings, it’s “out of time, but still in tune.” Listen closely, and you can make out the memories left traced in the rocks; shady shapes of electronic / pop pioneers past and present. Touches of ELO and New Order brush up against hints of modern sounds like M83 and Radio Dept., carried by the subtle breeze of Bjork’s Homogenic.

In a landscape of collapsed beats, humming of the life that springs up from underneath, Soft Fall takes you on frosty morning walks through the woods where twinges of psychedelic light escape through the spaces between the leaves. It’s Versailles in audio form: grand and beautiful, ornate and complex, surreal and classic all at once.