Archer Prewitt: White Sky

The return of orchestral pop turned out to be a bigger bust than the rise of electronica. Radio never touched the stuff—too many strings, too sensitive—and many record buyers instead gravitated to the less refined homebrew arrangements of the Elephant 6 collective. Yet when ambitious songwriters keep their focus fixed on the songs rather than the filigrees, music adorned with dense walls of strings, horns, mellotrons, and other decorative devices can be quite effective. Archer Prewitt was a member of the Coctails, an adventurous band too often dismissed as exotica revivalists, and he currently plays guitar in the remarkable Sea And Cake. But as a solo artist, Prewitt drifts closer to the more ornate moments of Big Star (circa Sister Lovers), shy icons like Nick Drake, and here-then-gone groups like The Left Banke. All three of those acts have endured as cult favorites rather than popular standard-bearers, which may help explain why orchestral pop has always remained an odd man out in the midst of eager-to-please Top 40 superstar vehicles. The music is just too subtle, too personal, which makes finding a broad, challenge-averse audience difficult. Prewitt's second album White Sky is so delicate and carefully composed that it all but threatens to disappear after its scant 40 minutes have expired. But spread throughout the album are dozens of fleeting moments of beauty and craftsmanship. White Sky brings together many of the musicians who made Prewitt's previous album In The Sun a creative success, and the assembled crew breathes a lot of life into "Final Season," "Summer's End," and the instrumental title track. Along with the aforementioned cult artists, the record also recalls such popular-yet-peculiar classic-rock staples as Neil Young and Pink Floyd, but rather than borrow explicitly from any of these artists, Prewitt blends them all together into an easily digested symphony of blissfully sleepy—though not soporific—sound. White Sky may be slight, but that doesn't minimize its welcoming emotional impact.