Obsidian (Baths album)
Obsidian is the second studio album by American electronic musician Baths, released on May 28, 2013 by Anticon. The album was preceded by the single "Miasma Sky" released on March 6, 2013. "Obsidian" received generally positive acclaim from critics and gained a title of "best new music" by "Pitchfork". It also peaked at number fifteen and sixteen on "Billboard"'s Top Dance/Electronic Albums and Heatseekers Albums respectively. Background. Will Wiesenfield started work on some tracks of "Obsidian" before his debut album "Cerulean". During touring and promotion of his first album, he became seriously ill with a  serious case of E. coli. Wiesenfield said he "got really sad and sort of felt this momentum to try and make this darker record". He commented that behind the music, "there’s a very distorted, raw state of mind" and explained that "it's this dichotomy. It's pop music, but it’s tragic and dark.” Critical reception. "Obsidian" received positive reviews from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 76, based on 22 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Ian Cohen  of "Pitchfork" praised the album saying "the gregarious and genial Wiesenfeld has created a more subversive work by getting uncomfortably close to pop." Vincent Pollard rated the album 9 out of 10, while writing in his review that ""Obsidian" is a gorgeous suite of electronic pop songs that will draw you in and stay with you for days on end." Slant Magazine described the music on the album as IDM. PopMatters's Robin Smith stated that "Obsidian" is a "self-sufficient synth-pop record in the vein of the Postal Service’s "Give Up", ploughing through its songs and laying  his beats as paths for stories." Personnel. Credits adapted from the liner notes of "Obsidian".