Sound of Silver

Before recording this album, James Murphy covered the entire studio at Long View Farm in Massachusetts in silver fabric and tin foil. He hated hearing his own voice played back and wanted something to look at that felt like the album he was trying to make. He also draped a piece of that same silver fabric in the studio for the next record, just to keep some connection to where this one came from. That level of obsessive, tactile thinking runs through every second of Sound of Silver.

Murphy had hit a creative block between albums and broke through it by accepting a commission from Nike to write 45 minutes of music designed to soundtrack a run. The kinetic requirements of that brief shook something loose. "Someone Great," which is the emotional center of Sound of Silver, first appeared as an instrumental in that Nike piece before Murphy wrote words about grief and distance and what it feels like to lose someone specific. The album was dedicated to a Bulgarian-born pioneer in group therapy named Dr. George Kamen, a detail so particular that it tells you everything about the kind of songwriter Murphy is.

On your first listen, the opening run of songs will hit you as pure propulsive dance music before you notice how sad most of the lyrics are. "All My Friends" builds for eight minutes on a single repeating piano figure and ends with a chorus that describes watching your whole life happen from a slight distance. "New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down" closes the album as a ballad about a city changing beyond recognition. This is one of the rare dance records where the music makes you want to move and the words make you want to sit very still, and somehow that contradiction feels exactly right.