Released

If you’ve ever slipped into an album like it’s a cocoon, you’ll know how Bavarian Fruit Bread feels. Fluid, blurred and hazy, Hope Sandoval’s first solo album, one of two recorded during Mazzy Star’s extended break across the ‘90s and ‘00s, has her working with Colm Ó Ciosóig from My Bloody Valentine, along with regular Mazzy Star collaborators Suki Ewers and Jill Emery, plus a few guest turns from British folk legend Bert Jansch. The latter turns up on one of the album’s highlights, a gentle cover of “Butterfly Mornings,” the original of which appeared on the soundtrack to The Ballad of Cable Hogue; but Bavarian Fruit Bread is at its absolute best when Sandoval and co. allow their songs to unfold slowly, sensually: see the zoned-out “Clear Day,” the swaying strings of “Feeling of Gaze,” and the closing “Lose Me on the Way,” which hallucinates its way to an opiated end.

Jon Dale