Mappe Of

Staring down the barrel of a crisis
Carried on in spite of it
How did we become so blind in our visions
Become defined in ’em?
— “Obsoloscenic”

If the hushed, inward Bon Iver of “For Emma, Forever Ago” and the fractured, forward-leaning Bon Iver of “22, A Million” marked opposite ends of a spectrum, “Afterglades” would land right in the middle. Not as a compromise, but as a line drawn between them. Restrained yet open, grounded yet forward-facing, the third album by Ontario-based thirty-something Tom Meikle moves steadily from bare essentials toward more refracted forms, bringing electronics into the picture as a natural extension rather than a break in tone.

Luminous melancholy, soft dystopia: looking ahead to make sense of the present

A singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, and the sole mind behind Mappe Of, Meikle returns after a long gap following “A Northern Star, A Perfect Stone” (2018) and “The Isle of Ailynn” (2019). The new record loosely frames itself as post-apocalyptic, but without any obsession with collapse. If anything, its mood leans quietly hopeful. The “afterglades” of the title — roughly, clearings that come after — are imagined spaces of possibility, future-facing scenes used to reflect back on the present. The lyrics sit comfortably between the everyday and the speculative, as if today were being recalled from a point just far enough ahead. The effect is slightly displaced, yet familiar, and more empathetic than detached.

Sonically, the album thrives on fine balance. “Spiritguide” opens gently, wrapped in chiming acoustic arpeggios, soft orchestral touches, and a strain of luminous melancholy that gradually gathers into choral shape. “Happiness In The Singularity” shifts gears, built on a fractured folktronic rhythm whose unhurried stop-start motion carries lines hovering between domestic memory and low-key sci-fi unease:

Tripping through the flashbacks
Watching old tapes by the staircase [...]
Aimless in the archives ’til an android comes to wake me
Memories on a hard drive ’til a solar flare will erase me.

Acoustic and digital, stretching time rather than volume

Guitar work sits at the album’s expressive core: skeletal but pointed phrases, edged with a fluid sharpness that brings Gastr del Sol to mind. On “Terraforming Moons”, the instrument folds in on itself in a near-Midwest emo solo, its looping insistence gradually opening out into something unexpectedly epic. The verse of “Honeyhaze” strips Americana down to its outline, openly channelling Justin Vernon, while “Watching A Chrysalis Form” and “All That’s Ever Mattered Is In This Greenhouse” drift into a slow, enveloping strain of progressive folk, more concerned with stretching time than building volume.

Tension comes to the surface on “A Scourge Laid Upon Earth”, where quiet/loud dynamics take over: a steady rhythmic build collides with dense layers of digitally saturated, granular guitars, suspending the track somewhere between synthetic colour and blinding natural light.

In the end, “Afterglades” feels less like a statement than a vantage point. It looks ahead to get a clearer read on the present, using distant scenarios to stay close to what actually leaves a mark. Even when the sound grows more mediated and layered, the writing never loses its human grounding. The album finds its balance in that unresolved space — between memory and projection, lived experience and technology. It doesn’t rush to clear things up. Instead, it lingers, letting the surface ripple.

05/01/2026