"Lament for Morning" is one of the most playful and beat-based tracks from Watered Lawn, the new album by Sacramento's Raleigh Moncrief. The solo project of Robby Moncrieff, who's worked with acts such as Dirty Projectors and Marnie Stern, it finds a way to further his own style of unique songwriting and production.
Though it's best heard on headphones — where the chopped-up vocal samples can ping-pong back and forth across the hemispheres of the brain — "Lament for Morning" also rewards big speakers, which bring out the song's eventual throbbing drum-machine pattern. In many ways, listening to Moncrief's work is like flipping through a brilliant artist's sketchbook: Ideas are introduced, some disappear and never return in following pages, and others persist. Some concepts aren't entirely filled out, while others could stand to be slimmed down. The result is a promising and exciting work of experimentation, worthy of celebration and study in equal measure.
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