For being such a self-proclaimed music fan I’m actually quite terrible at absorbing new music. I have albums in my ‘to listen’ collection that are two years old at this point. To be honest I mostly just listen to Dog Man Star (which you should all listen to) or Disintegration on repeat. I know what I like and I know that I’ll be happy to listen to it 1000 more times in the coming week.

I point this out because I’m writing about an album that has been in my ‘to listen’ folder since about October of 2011. Late to the game once again, eh? The album, as you may have guessed from the post title, is the ‘The Day The Signal Died’ by Simon Waldram, a singer-songwriter from the UK. It’s been awhile since an album on the low key acoustic side has broken through for me, but this album definitely has. I’ve had a bad habit of requiring the music to which I listen to employ loud as hell guitars, but The Day The Signal Died reminded me of the beauty of being low key. It’s a mood setting, even, decompressing, near ambient feeling album. After a few listens I had the urge to bring out some of Eno’s ambient work, ‘Music For Airports’ and ‘Apollo’ in particular.

The whole thing is excellent, but if you’re looking to jump straight to the stand out tracks I would point to ‘Falling Down’, ‘She Only Wants To Be Your Friend’, and ‘Dark Bloom’.