David Harrington Group: Become Alive

If the David Harrington Group’s dark instrumental album Become Alive suggests anything concrete, then it’s the sheer difficulty of becoming alive. Nicolas Jaar’s former Darkside collaborator plots a trajectory somewhere between electric Miles Davis and the cosmic loneliness of Pink Floyd, transforming studio improvisations and loose compositions into slowly unfolding atmospheres through the liberal application of post-production effects. Timbres and tempos gradually coalesce throughout the course of the album; Harrington doesn’t play a real guitar solo until two-thirds of the way in. But it all pays off in closer “All I Can Do,” a pretty epic Sergio Leone-esque composition full of optimistic charm.