Mark Schwaber – Everything Around Me LP (Jack London Records)

Mark Schwaber is back with another tremendous full-length material. For those who somehow missed this highly experienced musician, Schwaber is widely known for his studio works with some renowned names such as Lloyd Cole, Shadows Fall, Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr), Fred Maher (Lou Reed), Joan Wasser (Joan as Policewoman), Matthew Sweet, and Mary Lou Lord. Besides his studio work with prominent names in the game, Mark also released award-winning music under monikers Hospital and Home. Still, he somehow managed to release four full-lengths under his name, with Everything Around Me being his fifth and probably most advanced release to date. The most impressive fact about this material is that Mark Schwaber written, composed, recorded, engineered, and produced this recording at his home. However, the ambiance resembles like he recorded this material in some of the best recording studios.

Everything Around Me carries twelve beautiful compositions that are unveiling sophisticated darkness hidden within each one of them. Still, these compositions showcase a state of anxiety, depression, and sadness in an entirely different manner than you could expect. Mark cleverly enclosed these elements into the melodies, harmonies, arpeggiated segments, saddened ambiances, reverby atmospherics, calmy drones, synth leads, and programmed rhythmic sequences. However, he demonstrates a melancholic atmosphere and darkened aesthetics in a very fresh and unique manner, more appropriate for calmer music. You will be pleasantly surprised how the beforementioned ingredients operate in harmony with his brilliant ideas, exquisite musicianship, and sophisticated chants. Years spent in the studio working with renowned names in the music industry are hearable during the entire recording because Mark has done a tremendous job while writing, composing, recording, engineering, and producing his sixth full-length album.

Musicwise, Mark solely relies upon dream-pop aesthetics, but he definitely doesn’t stop there. Besides dream pop, you’ll encounter other ingredients that are decorating his detailed music, such as shoegaze, synthwave, synthpop, goth-pop, indie pop, indie rock, indie folk, alternative rock, and acoustic folk-rock. All these beforementioned genres are articulating in harmony. Mark decorated these orchestrations with generous portions of reverb, delay, and echo, so the echoic characteristics of shoegaze are coming straight from guitars and ambiances. Still, there’s a subtle dosage of studio reverb implemented on the remaining instruments in order to enhance the listening experience. Every composition exceeds expectations and comes as a logical continuation, so you’ll solely enjoy the entire album from beginning to end. Everything Around Me comes on beautiful orange vinyl, so head over to Jack London Records for more information about ordering.