Redolent of icy streams, brittle emotions, and breathtaking, lonely landscapes, Reverie might be the perfect album for a long, cold winter. This is the second full-length release from Montreal pianist Jade Bergeron, and it’s not surprising to hear that she once lived and worked in Iceland; there’s a Nordic bleakness to the beautiful, sparse sounds, as well as song titles like “Isolation,” “Stillness,” and “Unsettled.” Bergeron has referred to Reverie as a breakup album as well as a conceptual journey through dreams, nightmares, and what lies between them, and there is a distinctly dreamlike quality to these sad, atmospheric tunes, which always seem to have a cool wind blowing through them. The spare-sounding instrumentation is actually deceptively rich, with Bergeron’s gorgeous piano, vibraphone, and antique music boxes, which give a magical twinkling sound to a few tracks, supported by Sebastian Selke and Alex Mah’s cellos, Jeff Kingsbury’s vibraphone, Charles Spearin’s cornet and drum, Kathleen Edwards’ guitar, and Brock Geiger’s double bass. Bergeron even borrowed Sigur Rós’s 1900s celesta to add depth to her instrumental toolbox. The combination of flowing, open piano chords and sweetly melancholy cello on “Isolation” and “Unsettled” makes them sound almost like classical compositions, while “Undercurrent” and “Migration” are delicately pretty and undeniably spooky, and the closer, “Asleep,” is dark and ominous. When Bergeron interjects some jagged string parts into mesmerizing patterns of repetitive piano lines in “Song Sea I” and “Song Sea II,” it’s a reminder that there’s always something uneasy going on in these dreams.
