The dream-pop genre is in an productive, if overcrowded, place. Though M83′s Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming and Beach House’s Teen Dream remain the genre’s recent high-water marks, there are plenty of acts – e.g. Memoryhouse, Still Corners, Asobi Seksu – quietly and uniquely combining influences like Cocteau Twins, Sigur Rós, and William Basinski to produce fine work of their own. One of these acts is Porcelain Raft, the solo work of Mauro Remiddi.

Ageing well at 37 – leading Pitchfork to call him “an indie George Clooney” – Remiddi is an Italian who has an impressive musical CV. Over the last quarter century, Remiddi has performed gypsy Klezmer music with the Berlin Youth Circus; written film scores (including one for the 1997 Italian short “La Matta dei Fiori”); reinterpreted traditional music in North Korea; and played piano for an Off Broadway tap dance show. Now settled in New York, he has begun to draw on this diverse experience with his melancholic Porcelain Raft project.

It’s the sound of a lonely soul waking bleary-eyed from a deep sleep, smoothing the gap between the unconscious and reality with blushes of reverb, a wispy, androgynous voice and sweeping arrangements. Given his worldly roamings to date it’s likely Remiddi will turn his attention to other projects with time, so you should catch these fleeting moments with him while you can. Appreciate him for what he is now: a dreamer with his head in the clouds, flying too close to the sun.

WEB: http://porcelainraft.com/

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