Aching beauty in every minute. That’s the five word descrip­tion that springs to mind for Ekvíli­bríum, the debut album of Val­geir Sig­urðs­son, per­haps not the eas­i­est to remem­ber name, but cer­tainly one of the most well known for being a stel­lar pro­ducer to var­i­ous artists. The most famous is prob­a­bly Björk, for whom he did var­i­ous work on the del­i­cate Ves­per­tine and Medulla, but he has also worked with Bon­nie “Prince” Billy (who guests on two songs here), and Cocorosie, a band of which I know very lit­tle. In the midst of all this pro­duc­tion work, he started the Bed­room Com­mu­nity label, which shot to the top of everyone’s minds ear­lier this year with the out­ra­geously fan­tas­tic The­ory of Machines by Ben Frost. On his solo debut, there is a lit­tle bit of all these influ­ences, from del­i­cate folk vocals to careen­ing strings to micro-noise beats, along with a var­i­ous assort­ment of old instru­ments, and above all, an absolutely pris­tine, almost unbe­liev­ably nat­ural record­ing aes­thetic. These songs sound like they are in your room with you. Nowhere is this more appar­ent on my favorite track, “Baby Archi­tect,” with J. Walker on vocals and 5 or so instru­ments (includ­ing ‘vel­cro’!). This song could have eas­ily gone on for 10 bliss­ful, gor­geous min­utes. There is an ever present crack­ling fuzz through­out the song that reminds me of sta­tic being gen­er­ated. To call this nos­tal­gic would be under­stat­ing the case. The strings and horns give it a majes­tic sound, even though the mood is one of pen­sive thought. “Focal Point” might be the most mem­o­rable track, with it’s dis­tinc­tive piano by Nico Muhly and traces of Ves­per­tine. The instru­men­tal “After Four” has a mind­bend­ing and lus­cious syn­the­sizer melody that floats through­out the track, tak­ing you on a trip through the mid­dle of the album. Else­where, “Equi­l­brium Is Restored” and “Before Nine” pro­vide us with per­haps the most tran­scen­dent tracks of the set, with airy strings, synths, and piano. This tableau of celes­tial music takes us into the final por­tion of the album, with the sec­ond of 2 Bon­nie “Prince” Billy vocal tracks, “Kin” and the amaz­ing closer “Lungs, For Mer­rilee.” Bon­nie “Prince” Billy (Will Oldham)‘s track sounds like it’s from the per­spec­tive of a God, but could also eas­ily be from a par­ent, a tale of love and empa­thy for the cre­ated. The strings on this song are espe­cially lovely but the celesta (such an unusual and gor­geous instru­ment, appro­pri­ate to this album) and gui­tar melodies take cen­ter­stage. Bonnie’s vocals weave in and out of this with a clas­si­cal grace ben­e­fit­ting its sub­ject mat­ter, rein­forc­ing Will Oldham’s remark­able range. “Lungs, For Mer­rilee” takes us out in a grand fash­ion. Begin­ning as the qui­etest of com­po­si­tions, the strings and piano swell and cas­cade over it’s course, remind­ing me a lit­tle bit of a cross between Ben Frost’s “The­ory of Machines” and the clos­ing theme from Heat. For me, it’s as per­fect and cin­e­matic of a way to end the album as any I could imag­ine. Ekvíli­bríum is out next week in Europe and the US from fine record stores ever­where. Check Bent Crayon in the US or Boomkat in the EU, as well as the nor­mal dig­i­tal sources.

Instead of tracks, check out the 2 fan­tas­tic pre­view trail­ers Bed­room Com­mu­nity put together, with behind the scenes footage. The first fea­tures music from “Focal Point” and the sec­ond from my fave “Baby Archi­tect” fea­tur­ing J. Walker: