Was just speaking with a friend about Vetiver, and how there’s an understated quality to Andy Cabic’s music.

Could be that he’s relatively soft-spoken, or that having such diverse influences (this Vogue write-up details his record collecting habit) gives Cabic’s songs a polished/well-rounded texture. That Vogue piece approaches this idea from a different angle, suggesting his songs open up over time, revealing things you didn’t notice the first time around. I’d agree there — I was listening to “Ride Ride Ride” a few nights ago while running and finally connected its structure (a single chord repeating for most of the song) with the fact that the lyrics are about a long-haul car ride. OK, so maybe I should have put those dots together sooner, but simple brilliance is often easy to overlook, especially when form and function are merged so seamlessly.

I hear the same form-function alignment in the twangy swells of “Current Carry,” from new album Complete Strangers, which comes out in March.

Vetiver — “Current Carry” [Spotify/iTunes]