“Detritus,” Sarah Neufeld’s third solo album, differs from her last album, “The Ridge,” in its space, its quietness, and its general demeanor. “Detritus” is a calmer album than “The Ridge,” way less packed with sound, much more deliberate and contemplative. Neufeld doesn’t sing on this album the way she sang on “The Ridge.” On “Detritus,” she uses her voice more as texture, riming the songs like frost: she’s there for a moment, offering a wordless melody, then gone.
The songs on “Detritus”—while they are more deliberate—don’t stop moving. They’re fluid and shifting: a violin figure is introduced, resolves, and catalyzes a new figure, which pulls in a faraway synth drone, or a bank of flutes. It’s a little like when people talk about cinematography, a camera that’s always on the move—it’s the same here with Neufeld’s compositions, they change perspective, they focus on one element, they show you a technical flourish at just the right instant. Much of the album was inspired by Neufeld’s collaboration with dancer and choreographer Peggy Baker and her company, and you can definitely hear that dynamism throughout the songs—a burst of galloping percussion, an intense violin filigree—you can imagine the forms and movements of the dancers.
It’s a beautiful album, composed of gorgeous songs that feel like searching meditations, like “Stories,” “Unreflected,” and “Detritus,” and others, like “With Love and Blindness,” “The Top,” “Tumble Down the Undecided,” and “Shed Your Dear Heart,” that show off that kineticism and motion.