We All Grow Toward the Sea

Tucked away in the Catskill mountains, D. James Goodwin—whose credits over the previous decade include working with Kaki King, Murder by Death, Norah Jones, and Devo—set about recording an art-rock album like no other at his home studio. Recorded in 2012 whenever he could steal the time, We All Grow Toward the Sea is a masterful and grand expression, in a sense answering the question of what, say, a band such as Pink Floyd might have sounded like had they come of age in the days of computers and modern recording technology. Goodwin’s voice even recalls David Gilmour’s laid-back, smoky singing style, especially on the enigmatic “Defeat at the Hands of an Amateur.” The entire nine-song album is meant to be experienced on headphones in a single sitting, where one could sense the depth of field and fully immerse into the layers of instrumentation that build the songs into epic soundscapes far beyond the limits of genres and reality. The relatively scaled-down intro to “Snakes and Spiders” traces the music back to its acoustic beginnings before it, too, takes off for the skies.