Perfect days

On All Perfect Days, Michael Vallera’s second LP for Denovali, he continues to distill his singular, cinematic approach to sound. Acting as both performer and producer, Vallera constructs a lush, deeply emotional album that jettisons the overt rhythms and explicit drum programming that characterized much of his earlier work. Instead, in its tightly focused reliance on little more than guitar and amplifier feedback, supplemented by piano and synthesizer, the album explores a sparse but rich palette that evokes the ambient works of Harold Budd - although filtered through Vallera’s own sharp-edged sensibility. Recorded with Greg Norman at Electrical Audio and mastered by Daniel Rejmer, All Perfect Days adds to the mounting evidence that Michael Vallera is among the most assured and compelling artists to emerge from Chicago in recent years.