Barzin

Barzin sure sounds like he spends his life in rooms, longing to escape and seek sunlight and solace. In the meantime, he’s locked inside with morphine melodies and a microphone with the loneliest reverb you’ve ever heard. Singing with the strongest whisper he can conjure, Barzin longs to go driving ("Let’s Go Driving”), maybe he should go shopping or maybe he just needs more drugs ("Just More Drugs”). Either way, the lyrics lean a bit too much towards the literal, when the material could use some more mystique. Despite the spatial arrangements in his songs — glued together by slide guitars, droning violins, and the assistance of Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker — My Life in Rooms sounds suitably suffocating and claustrophobic, brightening up slightly when otherworldly keyboards and drum machines come into play. As languid and lovely as much of it is, particularly the instrumental "Sometimes the Night,” you really want to invite the guy out for a picnic.