The third EP for Cascine by Northeast Los Angeles producer Michael David is a four-song showcase of lavender balearica and elevated collaboration, born of practice, purity, and Pacific memory: Talking Book World. Named for a long-shuttered audio book shop deep in the valley where David worked as a teenager, the title hints at the wavelength of its clientele: lonely commuters, seeking escapism in a stranger’s voice. “It was a quiet place… I remember the solitude of the patrons,” said David. This music is equally attuned to escape and contemplation, fusing fantasy and melancholia in sensual arrangements of guitar, rhythm, and forgotten synth patches. It’s the sound of streetlights coming on at dusk, the sunset beckoning like the start of something beautiful. “I hope, most of all, for these tracks to take the listener somewhere.”

Taken as a whole, Talking Book World maps a mood both alluring and untouchable, windswept and wistful, the magic of past loves still remembered, of future nights still to be savored. David describes his craft as an act of daily devotion, playing and listening and feeling, mining and refining, the songs blooming according to their own inner nature. The results are persuasively poetic, rich with the residue of years and tours, tears and truths. “Over the years you try to learn what your skill set is as a musician, and I’ve come to realize mine: emotional sensitivity.”