Blanket Waves

When Explosions In The Sky's Mark T. Smith and Eluvium's Matthew Cooper united as Inventions last year, the expectation was a sound that married Smith's iconic, emotional compositions with Cooper's introspective, occasionally noisy ambiance. For the most part, their debut album delivered on that promise. However, their quick follow-up, Maze of Woods, exploded those sounds and smeared them into a rich, abstract space where comfort and confusion coexist. The duo's individual identities dissolved into a fluid, ever-changing landscape of mechanical rhythms, vocal samples, and indeterminate instrumentation. It was uniquely haunting, and brilliantly executed. Blanket Waves continues in the direction charted on Maze of Woods increasingly malleable, and even farther-reaching in its blurring of dream and reality. Composed of two 12-minute tracks, it encompasses the curiosity and craft that Smith and Cooper are renowned for, exemplified by their weaving of seemingly disparate pieces into a breathtaking pastiche that manages to evoke the same sense of wonder and blissful abandon that have made Explosions In The Sky and Eluvium so important to so many.