Wheatie Mattiasich's dreamy, eerie music could fill a forest cathedral. Old Glow — her new album made with collaborator Stephen Santillan — drenches dulcimer, guitar, keyboard and harmonium in cotton clouds of cozy reverb. It's not quite shoegaze or dreamy pop, but weaves its ballads similarly, through cable-knit stitches of sound.
"This Way," in particular, is a wispy waltz that somehow balances hymn-like awe with a slow, spectral dance; there's an unusual beauty to everything — ambient guitar borealis, strummed dulcimer and what sounds like a tack piano in space — but especially Mattiasich's voice. Landing somewhere between Josephine Foster and Jean Ritchie, Mattiasich swoops syllables and stretches phrases in unexpected ways that make our understanding of the words moot — we're in her strange glow.
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