Keith Canisius The Oceanic Voyage I & II

Keith Canisius has been through phase after phase of his musical adventure, and it seemed at times that the man couldn't find his sound. The Oceanic Voyage proves he did — and he managed to work it into everything he's done.

The Oceanic Voyage is a bit like a pot of cooking spaghetti — you sense here that the music's really begun to boil, and Keith is pulling a strand at a time from the pot, tossing it against the wall, and seeing what sticks. These are the tracks that weren't ready; some meander through melodies, others don't seem to have much in the way of defined melody at all.

This is unabashedly rough around the edges; it's an exploratory look at exploratory music. You can hear shades of Eno, Fripp, Glass — ambient and experimental progressive rock drive The Oceanic Voyage, and suddenly Keith Canisius's sound starts to make sense.

2010's This Time It's Our High is sometimes dubbed part of that "chillwave" movement but was certainly more cultured, and 2008 saw Ferris Wheel Makeout take on shoegaze successfully — but this is the connective. The Oceanic Voyage is Keith Canisius doing what he does, quite simply.

So out goes that dream pop, and in comes the ambient. If you heard This Time It's Our High or Ferris Wheel Makeout and enjoyed either, be careful before you jump into The Oceanic Voyage. It's not as if there's some lack of quality — far from it — but if you're expecting more fuzzy pop tunes for a lazy day, there's not much of that here.

The Oceanic Voyage is an adventure, but it's not one that will astound or befuddle. It's simply a beautiful connection between the styles of music Keith Canisius has already embraced, and to get a back story like this — well, it's rare, that's for sure.