Enjoy the Soothing Cello of Isaiah Gage [stream]

Isaiah Gage is the thing that goes thump in the night and also the thing that deftly plucks in the night. If you are going to play a cello, you should move out of the way to let the majestic instrument take center stage. This is exactly what Gage does, letting his voice stand in the background of a flurry of cello strums and brief electronic bursts.

Gage sounds like he had a couple beers with Destroyer’s Dan Bejar with the way he mutters and slurs his words on “Washed in the Sunlight”. The sobering cello can’t help but remind me of my favorite string player, Owen Pallett. When I first heard Pallett bring his virtuoso violin to Final Fantasy, I was constantly taken aback by the stark difference of such a unique instrument in the realm of popular music. Gage makes the cello fit in well — maybe because the cello so clearly takes the lead here, like the way a good dancer should guide you naturally across the floor (or in this case, through a sonic adventure). Maybe, though, the explanation is simply because the cello sounds so fantastic that I don’t want to remember a time without it.