Silver Ladders

On the follow-up to her 2018 album, Hundreds of Days, Mary Lattimore’s harp sounds as ethereal as ever, but the atmosphere has changed. The Los Angeles musician’s tone is more muted, her pacing more patient; a vivid sparkle has given way to a wintry hush. Neil Halstead, of shoegaze legends Slowdive, sits in the producer’s chair and lends the occasional touch of guitar or synth, but what’s striking is how light his touch is. On “Sometimes He’s in My Dreams,” his pinging counterpoints recall Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie, and nowhere does he drive the music toward the climactic swells his own band is famous for; mostly, he stays out of the way, laying out a velvety backdrop of silence against which Lattimore’s instrument shines, pluck by reverberant pluck. The mood is calm, contemplative, and often somber: “Til a Mermaid Drags You Under” drifts along on minor-key melody, suspended in the half-light; inspired by the story of a drowning, “Don’t Look” balances stillness with rumbling moments of tension. The gentlest pieces here, like “Pine Trees” and the title track, sum up the spirit of Lattimore’s project—a bewitching fusion of dream pop and ambient—with an elegiac spirit and understated grace.