Seattle’s Damien Jurado has always experimented with an atmosphere, mixing hazy industrial sounds in with the pastoral folk of his core talent, yet with his latest release Maraqopa, the folk singer and songwriter takes this onto a whole new plane and succeeds entirely. Another year marks another reunion with longtime producer Richard Swift and this time results in a rather more psychedelic output. It’s nearing a decade since the maudlin troubadour signed to Secretly Canadian and in so many years he has released almost as many albums and channelled a variety of styles. The darkened atmosphere of 2006′s And Now I’m In Your Shadow made way for a slightly more rootsy folk album in 2008 with Caught in the Trees, before reaching last year’s Saint Bartlett of which Maroqopa, in many ways, is an extension.

Like similar artists from that neck of the musical underbrush, opening track ‘Nothing is the News’ is reminiscent of some of Omaha’s Simon Joyner’s psychedelia, allowing Jurado to break free of his comfort zone, letting the instrumentation tell the story with screeching static for once, rather than deft lyricism. The title track returns to the Jurado of old, harbouring all of his brilliance as a songwriter against a stark piano and echoing vocals. “We are echoes God creates in the shade,” he exclaims, almost Neil Young-esque in his falsetto proclamations, while ‘Away from the Garden”s choir calls and responds with chilling children’s choruses.

In many places the instrumentation is unobtrusive: the reeds of oboe on ‘This Time Next Year’ matching the hollow echo of the woodblock tapping against Jurado’s voice in the foreground; while the delightfully lilting ‘Working Titles’, with its its waltzing time frame and warming vocals, conceals harsh lyrics, smartly scathing of its industry. Still it remains the album’s standout. There is great depth here and a look at the harshness of the pastoral expanse, but too a look at its calming beauty.

For an album clocking in at just over half an hour there is such variety and flirtation with genres that it feels far longer given the generousness of its offerings; and with the majority recorded live from the studio it is lent a roughness and honesty. Damien Jurado has branched out here: a move away from the quietude he had mastered so well over the years, to a louder brasher expansion of his musicianship, while his trademark plaintive vocal and concise, skilled songwriting remain intact. Certainly in the past he has experimented with the louder folk-rock options but Maraqopa holds the keys to a whole new direction and marks what we hope to be an excellent beginning to a new chapter in his extensive career.