Murraline Lane is sparse electronic music created by Ylva Wiklund – vocals – and David Wenngren, charged with the ubiquitous “music.”  “Our House is the Wall” is full of pristine keyboards creating dry, expansive electro-wash that is incredibly chilled out.  Chilled out may be putting it lightly, as the pieces contained within are languid to the point of being kind of a downer.  Synth sounds arc and modulate in and out with a palette of fast and slow attack matched with stuttering keyboards creating “soft glitch” sounds.
The pieces are more of a pop length than the long drone pieces the material mimics. Â Essentially each song is a soft melodic ambient piece of drone with pop sensibilities. Â However, the entire disc is void of percussion sounds which makes most songs seem without meter or cadence; Â the pieces drift this way and that with no real pulse.
The vocals by Wiklund are an interesting addition to this style of keyboard-driven ambient music. Â In lieu of no drums, the vocals somewhat stand in to set a tempo at times, however the vocals are not constant and do not appear on every track. Â Her voice is frail and either recorded or processed to give a very distant sound that is persistent on each track. Â This helps add to the bummed-out vibe of the disc.
Each piece on this disc has a similar vibe and many of them sound as though they could be the same piece, at times I wish this were so, as some of the pieces have an abrupt end with more energy to expend.  I tried to play this disc in many different situations and couldn’t find an acceptable time to listen to it in one sitting until I forced an entire play in both the car and in my room.
6/10
