GHOST TALK

For most any musician, the making of the sophomore record carries a certain weight: the hope to do it differently this time around and to make it even better can loom large over the creative process. But for Saunder Jurriaans, “Phantom Limb,” the follow up to his much-acclaimed debut, “Beasts” (Decca), sophomore tropes are shrugged off as the LA-based multi-instrumentalist’s ten new songs explode with a looseness indicative of the artist’s ever-expanding musical knowledge and experience.

Jurriaans is usually operating in the mode of collaborator—he and his longtime friend, Danny Bensi, are an award-winning film scoring duo, lauded for their deeply effecting scores on hit television shows like Ozark and The OA. Feature films include Martha Marcy May Marlene, Enemy, and God’s Creatures, as well as provocative documentaries like Nat Geo’s LA 92 and HBO’s Tina Turner documentary, Tina. But on “Phantom Limb,” Jurriaans has done it all on his own: every song was written, performed and recorded by Jurriaans in his Highland Park studio (with J. Daniel Goodwin mixing and mastering).

Unsurprisingly for someone so busy composing and recording music for the screen, for Jurriaans the studio has become a laboratory for far-reaching musical experimentation.