[Editor’s Note: Sonata Sessions are produced independent of HearNebraska.org by Nickolai Hammar, and we’re proud to premiere them. Enjoy.]

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Much like The Bends-era Thom Yorke, Eli Mardock songs have an uncanny ability to remove you from the world with an endless verse, and then pull back the curtain to reveal you never left.

As you can see from this video of the artist simply strumming an acoustic guitar in his home, it doesn’t happen by technological shimmer. (Though that admittedly magnifies the experience on Mardock’s 2013 LP Everything Happens for the First Time.) Mostly, it’s a recipe of mounting minor chords and the singer mewing over the them in drawn-out phrases. Eventually, the song will hit a triumphant resolving chord that didn’t seem possible amid in the chaos, and you’re back in a bright living room fit for a newborn. It’s what makes Mardock’s work at once disorienting and accessible.

Watch Carrie and Eli Mardock perform in the latest Sonata Session: