Coma Cinema is the solo project of South Carolina dweller Matt Cothran, who began writing under the freshly-famed moniker as a teenager in 2005. Since then he’s kept up a notoriously high output, having released three albums in the same number of years, arguably climaxing with ‘Blue Suicide’, only the first of these stunning creations to receive a priced physical release. Until now, he’s taken the unequivocally modest recourse of releasing entire albums as free downloads as his philosophy, asking that if one feels the need to compensate Coma Cinema they should do nothing more than to ‘share the music with others’.

In the short piece of writing which accompanied the album’s release, Cothran wrote that “[Blue Suicide] is a record I could never make again”, and even the most inattentive listen of Coma Cinema’s records will demonstrate this confined and depressive grandeur to be as such. It is this dauntingly calm and collected reserve which spills vividly in to the recordings, which are for the most part downbeat, and viscerally illustrative, though hoisted up in to reluctant positivity by their naive, weathered simplicity and closely pitched allegories. This vocal but reserved storytelling is occasionally reminiscent of folk, but often woodsy songs retain a certain street wise imagery - the dominant and idiosyncratic feature of a band where elements of both the rural and the urban might seep. Blue Suicide is projected as somewhat enticing yet withdrawn, emotionally strung yet strangely mysterious and abstract - giving off simultaneously a yearning and a defensive signal that there’s plenty more wisely orchestrated arrangements still holed up inside Coma Cinema’s illustrious lyrical mind - if he wishes to share them, that is.

The music does what it can to mirror this reflectively poetic and private aesthetic, and the concise avenue of accessibly Beatles-esque lo-fi which Coma Cinema carves is one which has been widened and eclecticised on the latest instalment. It features the first explicit use of electronic accompaniment which Coma Cinema has been involved with, developing that scratchy and unaltered home recording sound into something a little fuller and wider-reaching than before. The orchestration remains wonderfully dynamic - peaking on ‘Caroline, Please Kill Me’, the witty and buzzing anthem and the greatest spontaneous guitar ballad Jeff Magnum never penned, and re-aligning itself with those solitary levels Coma Cinema has perhaps made his name with on songs like ‘Her Sinking Sun’ and ‘Greater Vultures’. The latter plays host to such typically sunken word-play; ‘unless you’re willing to eat what the vultures will not’ and perhaps one of ‘Blue Suicide’s most striking of endings, the relentless pounding of synthesisers and stark life advice: ‘no-one cares, its easier to quit’ - repeated several times over on ‘Her Sinking Sun’.

‘Blue Suicide’ ends up feeling like the Coma Cinema album to beat - having formed the most complete of works from Coma Cinema to date but not at the cost of raw musical instinct or emotional instability. It dropped March 15th via the Coma Cinema website, where you can download it for free. If you feel like putting forth some financial support, you can buy the vinyl and cassette from Wonder Beard Tapes and Fork And Spoon Records.

Coma Cinema - Her Sinking Sun (MP3)

Coma Cinema - Caroline, Please Kill Me (MP3)

Coma Cinema - Greater Vultures (MP3)

coma cinema :: her sinking sun from Dino Rossi on Vimeo.