Damon & Naomi - A Sky Record (2021) Hi-Res

The duo’s latest album is a calming and tender reflection on appreciating what you have in uncertain times. Damon & Naomi’s A Sky Record could have just as easily been titled A Quarantine Album. Although the duo started working on the music in 2019, in Tokyo with longtime collaborator Michio Kurihara, they finished during the pandemic, and the lyrics bear the unmistakable stamp of those early months of lockdown: the shock of isolation, the days that bled into each other without distinction, the concerned check-ins from friends and family. “Oceans in Between” opens with a vow to those long-distance loved ones. “Every day I think of you,” Naomi Yang sings tenderly. “I send all my strength to you.”

In an essay included in the 48-page book that accompanies the album, Yang writes that her lasting feeling from quarantine was an overwhelming sense of gratitude, particularly for the support of friends and the comfort of daily rituals. And so, despite its many references to uncertain times and passing storms, A Sky Record is chiefly an album about appreciating what you have. “Shape things that you can change/Nothing need stay the same/Cherish the simple joys,” Yang sings on “The Gift.”

Nearly as much as the absence of Dean Wareham, this wide-eyed, sometimes almost new age-y outlook has separated Damon & Naomi’s records from the ones they used to make as two-thirds of Galaxie 500. Despite the group’s brief existence, Galaxie 500’s legacy has endured not only because they were a great band, but also because they were a cool band: Their dream-pop presented itself with the ragged edges of post-punk and the detached chic of the Velvet Underground.