Marble Sky is Jeff Witscher, who has previously done work with noise unit Impregnable. However, “The Sad Return” is nothing of that sort. On the first track, “Pulling Up Grass Under Blanket,” we find him creating billowing clouds of breathy ambience via guitar and electronics, and it’s a fine thing indeed. Perhaps at times reminiscent of Windy and Carl, this elegant, quickly cruising brume is melancholy, yet remains oddly charming despite the blatant romanticism. The music is deceptively kinetic, akin to watching variegated skies coast overhead in time-lapse. One gets a sense of great atmospheric migrations.

Witscher continues the motif of migration on the second track (as well as the third), smoothly transitioning to a “Dull Hue,” a composition which is outwardly more dynamic, but just as ethereal and ostensibly adrift as the first. It distinguishes itself with a little more grainy texture, but is no less rapt.

Marble Sky moves restlessly on from there, creating more tension on the final cut, “What You Might Forget,” though doing it in no less a tranquil way, with large movements mounting, then resolving and cycling through again. There are ruptures, tidal upheavals, but nothing to upset the delicate balance of a pretty beautiful document. 7/10 -- P. Somniferum (1 July, 2009)