Ian William Craig's 2020 full-length Red Sun Through Smoke was created during one of the most stressful, traumatic times of the Canadian composer's life. In short, he recorded it in two weeks during August of 2018 while temporarily living in a small house in the British Columbian town of Kelowna while forest fires were surrounding the city. Craig's grandfather had been diagnosed with dementia, and he died during the recording of the album after his lungs filled with fluid due to all the smoke. Other elders in his care facility passed away, and Craig witnessed someone collapse from cardiac arrest while in a pub. In addition to the environmental catastrophe and human tragedy, he fell into a long-distance relationship, adding further layers of hope and yearning to his work. Far more stripped-down than Craig's astounding 2016 opus Centres, he made the no less emotionally heavy Red Sun Through Smoke using his grandfather's piano, a shortwave radio, an assortment of modified tape decks, and his own soaring vocals. Even without some of the more advanced effects he's able to use in a proper studio setting, he's still able to do a lot with his limited setup, wringing unearthly sounds and textures from decaying tape loops. The pieces take several forms, from the passionate a cappella cries of opener "Random" (actually recorded last, after he had packed up his belongings) to more abstract pieces such as the curdled pianos and static of "The Smokefallen" or the dramatic, nearly industrial "Condx QRN." Standout "Weight" is one of his most straightforward, affecting ballads, opening with unadorned piano and a gorgeous vocal melody, then switching to a ghostly chorus that becomes nearly smothered in effects by the end. Another of the album's highlights, "Open Like a Loss," begins with careening, cavernous vocals before distorted chords crash out of nowhere, approximating the feeling of suddenly realizing that you're doomed and everything is hopeless. The much calmer closing track, "Stories," ends with Craig intoning "Let them burn" over a gentle chorus and pianos, ultimately accepting that what's lost can't return or be replaced, and we have to move forward.
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