I Could Be Your Dog/I Could Be Your Moon＜Green Vinyl＞

Concluding the two-part collaboration they began with 2021s I Could Be Your Dog (Prequel), composers Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Emile Mosseri close the circuit with the glowing I Could Be Your Moon (Sequel). Combined into a single playlist, the two halves create a strange, dappled biome of liquid melodies and limber arrangements, occasionally veering into song, but more often than not, simply existing as brief musical movements. Mosseri, fresh off an Oscar nomination for his enchanting Minari film score, seems to be the more pop-oriented of the two, with Smiths ephemeral textures supplying her trademark sense of wonder. Perhaps because of his indie rock background, Mosseri is the more dominant voice in the project, or at least the one more likely to deliver its lyric-based passages. Smiths airy vocals are most present in the harmonic stacks that hang like pink clouds amid "I Could Be Your Dog" or the wordless melodic refrain that drives the strange left turn of "Shim Sham"s second half. Frequently, the two singers mesh together into a dense space-Baroque chorus, like on the Brian Eno-esque "Green to You." Of the more instrumental-based works, the dizzying back-to-back combo of "Glendora" into "Blink Twice" is a special thrill. A cinematic centerpiece of the albums front half, it sounds like an orchestra of crickets riding a flock of bluebirds into a rainbow. Composed over a two-year period through long-distance file trading, the 13 pieces took on the structure of a palimpsest as each musician built a new layer on top of the old, ping-ponging the music back and forth until it became its own peculiar artifact. The album is quite democratic in that way, sounding like the best aspects of both musicians along with the intangible aura a worthwhile collaboration creates. That it was made largely in isolation during a period of great global tumult makes its joyful nature even more welcome. ~ Timothy Monger