In 2011, Sad Souls, who is Ann Arbor's Tom Auty, released one of my secret favorite a-little-more-lively-than-ambient albums of the past few years, Apeiron, a simply constructed and emotionally neutral LP of slow guitar loops and some quiet singing. Form in the Fog Beside, Auty's new 30-minute EP, is far blurrier, with every note taking a second to clarify itself, and, with the focus moved from melody to texture, far more finely produced. More drone less doodles. The opening and closing tracks are slow-motion squints at fuzz; "In a Wooded Valley, in a Flurry of Snow," which unrecognizably samples Joanna Newsom's "The Fray," ends in total distorted white-out. Very pretty.
