As diverse as my tastes are, I often find myself gravitating towards music that is either atmospheric, experimental, or heavy.

And as I’ve discovered recently, Cloudkicker is all three.

Cloudkicker is the name given to the solo project of Columbus, OH multi-instrumentalist Ben Sharp. He writes, records, and performs every sound heard on any Cloudkicker release and releases it under pay-what-you-want on Bandcamp, with a few self-funded vinyl pressings here and there.

But when I went to start adding some Cloudkicker to my collection, I ran into some problems that are unique to independent, DIY projects.

First: most of the vinyl copies were egregiously expensive, some albums listed well over $100.

Second: among the affordable albums, some of them were attached to absolutely awful artwork. This is most true of his debut, The Discovery, which contains some of the most beautiful prog-ringed post metal I’ve ever heard. But unfortunately, it looks like this.

As much as I loved the music in that album, I couldn’t bring myself to pay money for that (someone once referred to it as first-year-graphic-design-student—I think that’s generous). Instead, I searched for another album within my budget with better artwork. As his music all seems to be remarkably consistent, making my choice based on those factors didn’t seem to be much of a gamble.

And so, I landed on Subsume, a four track (on vinyl) visceral statement that passes from grief to triumph as quickly as life itself. The songs are gorgeous, shapeshifting movements that are as carefully composed as Beethoven’s symphonies. Layers of guitars and keyboard atmospheres dance through intricate rhythms and lush walls of noise.

For all its denseness and intricacy, Subsume rushes right by, its 40 minutes feeling almost trancelike. It is a transcendent piece that is always spectacularly beautiful, regardless of how heavy it gets. And thankfully, a much better designer took over at this point (Charlie Wagers, who has designed most of mewithoutYou’s merch) who was able to give this gorgeous project artwork to match.