Matteah Baim, Death of the Sun

reviewed by dave heaton

There’s something like a black-hole or Bermuda triangle effect with Matteah Baim’s album Death of the Sun. I go in, am absorbed, get lost and can’t quite figure out what’s going on. It’s the pairing of her voice – creeping, hazy, fragile – and the sleepwalking (sleep-crawling, really) music. I can’t get my mind around what she’s singing or what instruments are creating this fog that’s wrapped around me. Not that the instruments are strange – guitar, mostly, and piano and drums. Or that the lyrics are indecipherable – she clearly sings about a “wounded whale” on the song of that name. It’s just the music is so strange, with such a particular mood, that I get struck dumb each time. And then all of a sudden I get to track five and wake up with a start to her singing “Michael Row Your Boat Ashore as a prayer. Huh? Death of the Sun is at the very least evocative and captivating. If she was trying to emulate the death of the sun through sound, she might have succeeded. I imagine myself staring up at the sky, confused yet amazed.

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