For now I am winter

"For Now I am Winter is competent, reasonably varied, and efficiently rousing. Muhly effectuates some pleasing motion in the strings and winds ... But the lingering impression that there's not a lot to grasp emotionally becomes stark in the thinnest tracks. My takeaway from "Words of Amber" is that it sounds really nice to pick a winding path through piano scales in a coldly reflective room, while "We (Too) Shall Rest" is a funeral dirge without a subject, a feeling without a focus".

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"Helped along by the tasteful orchestrations of American composer Nico Muhly and the fluid and expressive voice of guest vocalist and fellow Icelander Arnor Dan, the lush and lonesome collection falls somewhere between the ambient, string-laden melancholy of Eluvium, the rural soul searching of Bon Iver, and the cosmic opulence of Sigur Rós ... While the four tracks that Dan lends his formidable pipes to provide the most instantly engaging moments on the album, instrumental selections like the quietly lustrous "Only the Winds," the fractured and foreboding "This Place Was a Shelter," and the lovely, bare-bones "Words of Amber" are just as resonant when allowed time to percolate".

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