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Nightmare Ending is the first proper Eluvium album released since 2010's Similes, the unexpectedly vocal-heavy ambient-pop record that simultaneously delighted and confounded longtime fans. But the Nightmare Ending story actually began years earlier, as it was intended to be the follow-up to the watershed album, Copia. Conceived as a way of helping loosen his selfimposed ideals of perfection, Cooper labeled each Nightmare Ending track as either a "dream," or an "imperfection" ? a way of differentiating the philosophical concept of "dream vs. reality," couched in the more tangible technical distinctions of "flawless vs. flawed." With each progressive listen those differences naturally challenged themselves, and without relying on the standardized perfection protocol, Cooper became increasingly reluctant to release any of it. He shelved it, and pursued Similes instead. But Nightmare Ending wouldn't go away; it lingered in the back of his mind, the abandoned fruits of a truly worthwhile and noble journey towards a less creatively constraining mindset. Cooper returned to it with renewed vigor, writing and recording in a blur of time that spanned several years, ending with a pair of inspired collaborations with Mark T. Smith of longtime friends and label mates, Explosions In The Sky ("Envenom Mettle," closing Disc 1)and Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo ("Happiness," closing Disc 2). The result is a body of work that encompasses everything remarkable about past Eluvium albums, executed more powerfully and poignant than ever before.

Following the release of the artistically daring and critically-acclaimed Similes earlier this year, we're proud to present The Motion Makes Me Last EP, the scarcely limited companion CDEP to the equally rare Leaves Eclipse The Light EP. In addition to the stately ambient pop title track, The Motion Makes Me Last EP features three brand new, previously unreleased non-album tracks. "Crash Deconstructed" is a melancholy keyboard-based instrumental that's equal parts Sigur Rós and Hill Street Blues; "Remnant Signals" matches the elegant, otherwordly beauty of Eluvium's most striking ambient instrumentals; and closing this collection is a reworking of the Similes cut "Leaves Eclipse The Light" by Nick Zammuto from the Books that's as much a cover as it is a remix ? and every bit as charming, beautiful and unique as you'd expect from the Books. Strictly limited to 2,000 copies and featuring an exquisite custom die-cut cover, we don't expect these to stick around for very long.

Following the release of the artistically daring and critically-acclaimed Similes earlier this year, we're proud to present Leaves Eclipse The Light EP, a scarcely limited CDEP featuring the stunning opening track from Similes, plus two brand new exclusive tracks. "Leaves Eclipse The Light" is a gorgeous, laconic piece of ambient pop that Alternative Press called "breathtaking." Following that is "A Life In Tides Less Current," an 11-minute instrumental in which your mind is taken on the kind of self-reflective, nostalgic journey that made Eluvium's Talk Amongst The Trees album the cherished treasure that it is. Closing this EP is the incredible, long-awaited remix of "The Motion Makes Me Last" by electronic/dance icon Four Tet. Tucked away on the Enhanced CD portion of this EP is the awe-striking "The Motion Makes Me Last" video directed by acclaimed filmmaker Matt McCormick (The Shins, Some Days Are Better Than Others). Strictly limited to 2,000 copies and featuring an exquisite custom die-cut cover, we don't expect these to stick around for very long.

The long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed Copia, Eluvium takes a courageous creative leap with Similes, an 8-song album featuring three key musical elements previously uncharted by Eluvium: percussion, a verse-chorus song structure, and singing. For a celebrated experimental musician, it was just about the bravest and scariest direction to go. In this way, Similes is the most truly experimental Eluvium album yet, and also the most accessible. Written, performed and recorded as always by Matthew Cooper's own Watership Sounds studio, Similes marries Eluvium's trademark dream-like aura with Cooper's unique, laconic vocals, akin to an especially contemplative Ian Curtis with trace reflections of Magnetic Fields and Brian Eno. It is the most daring ? and ultimately most rewarding ? work of Eluvium's impressive and prolific career.

In the dictionary, the literal definition for Eluvium reads: the debris from the disintegration of rock. One listen to Matthew Cooper's (aka Eluvium) flawless debut album, even peripherally, and you can't help but smirk at how perfectly appropriate the moniker is. Sounding somewhat like the echoed resonance of a Sonic Youth show after everyone has stopped playing and the crowd has gone home, Cooper himself isn't guilty of the mass destruction, he's merely there to pick up the beautifully broken pieces. Resting comfortably and confidently in the spirits of Brian Eno's Discreet Music and Ambient Music For Airports, Eluvium is a freakishly beautiful affair. If it was ever possible for a warm gust of wind to send chills through every bone in your body, then Eluvium is that warm wind. It is pure, epic rock music... after the lights go out.

Returning exactly one year after dropping one of the most consistently gorgeous ambient rock records of the last decade with 2003's Lambent Material, Eluvium's Matthew Cooper follows it up with, well, one of the most consistently gorgeous neoclassical records of the last quarter century. An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death began as most Eluvium's pieces do, sitting on a bench in front of a baby grand piano in Cooper's apartment. The difference this time was that the songs started to grow legs, and eventually ran away together until an entire album of haunting, intimate suites were made for solo piano. Cooper's longtime influences of baroque classical and modern minimalist composers shines bright over the brief-but-sweeping half hour length of this record, and never once does he give in to the wall-of-noise temptations that made Lambent Material so oceanic. Instead of drifting away in a sea of swelling guitars and drones, you're graced with a rare display of Cooper's unaccompanied piano movements.

Beneath the cold water glow, Talk Amongst the Trees is a soundtrack for exploring the surface of your own ocean, slow moving like the sand that runs through your fingers, and incandescent like the most unique creatures of the sea. Lacking most recognizable instrumentation (save the guitar mantra, "Taken"), Talk Amongst the Trees is an album that exists in its own fantastic landscape. Making no attempt to compete with the world outside, it drags you inside your own subconscious, allowing sentimental thoughts and memories to pile up on themselves. As the hour-long journey progresses, details fall away until nothing remains but a warm, colorless â?? but intimately personal â?? abyss. We're not sure how he does it, but once again Eluvium creates a new and beautiful feeling.

Over the course of three albums Eluvium (aka Matthew Cooper) has crawled from total obscurity to his rightful place as one of American's premier modern composers. Tying up his career to this point ? and acting as a companion piece to Talk Amongst the Trees ? the four pieces on When I Live by the Garden and the Sea showcase both the neoclassical piano-driven elegance and the tidal drones that he has become almost famous for. It takes his explorations in sound and vision to their logical conclusion, clearing the way for a new phase to be unleashed on his next album in spring 2007.

Following a string of increasingly remarkable albums, Eluvium's Matthew Cooper set out to broaden his instrumental palette, while maintaining the uncanny emotional resonance that has become his trademark. The result is Copia, an hour-long epic that applies Eluvium's heartache-inducing ether to a symphony of strings, brass, keyboards and piano. Noticeably absent but hardly missed are the washes of guitars that color most of Eluvium's previous material. The deliberate exclusion of traditional rock instrumentation serves as sufficient proof that the instrument is not Eluvium's driving force. At best it is a catalyst, a vehicle to that netherworld in the back of your head, where your life starts to uncontrollably reevaluate itself.