Valley Taylor – “Doppelgänger”

Doppelgänger is the kind of record that takes a few listens before it fully opens up. Valley Taylor, a solo project out of Winters, California, has put together something genuinely quiet and patient here, and that restraint turns out to be the whole point.

The album is built around fractured identity, that strange experience of looking at yourself from the outside and not quite recognizing what you see. Taylor handles that without ever getting too heavy-handed about it. Collaborators Devin Zamora on keys and Geoff Nelson on guitar keep things spacious. Zamora especially has a gift for finding parts that add depth without overcrowding a song. The standout “End of the World” is probably the clearest example of what this album is going for: a quiet, internal kind of collapse that doesn’t announce itself. “Lightyear” goes in a different direction, more layered and confrontational, and together the two tracks cover the full range of the record pretty well.

The Bon Iver and Orchid Mantis influences are real, but Valley isn’t copying anyone. There’s also something of the Minecraft soundtrack in the DNA here, that understated, slightly nostalgic stillness, and it works surprisingly well. If you haven’t heard any of Valley’s earlier work, now’s a good time to dig in. Follow this project and don’t sleep on it. Have you come across Valley Taylor before this release?