Last updated on October 23, 2019

Rosenau and Sanborn‘s Bluebird is a charming update of the back-porch picker motif: instead of all-acoustic instruments, Rosenau and Sanborn play an acoustic guitar and analog synths. These are long, relaxed, warm, comforting, beautifully-lazy arrangements; the duo got together for a weekend, wrote/recorded/had fun for two days straight, and then released their output as-is. There’s occasional background noise evocative of place: a creaking chair, rain, spoken words at the end of tracks, and other bits that give this a totally-lived-in feel. The combination of the slowly, gently unfolding acoustic guitar lines with the subtle tension of the delicate electronics pushing forward elevates this from idle noodling to purposeful creation: these songs feel like they belong, like they exist, even as they float effortlessly toward whatever comes next. This is an ideal soundtrack for reading a good book on a rainy vacation day up in the mountains, which is pretty much an ideal vacation for me. So this is good, good stuff. Recommended.