Throughout the ’90s and early ’00s, Sam Rosenthal’s Projekt Records picked up where 4AD Records left off, releasing a series of darkly lush and atmospheric albums from artists like Arcanta, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, Love Spirals Downwards, Lycia, and Thanatos. But as far as I’m concerned, the album that best distilled Projekt’s classic “darkwave” sound down to its purest essence was Soulwhirlingsomewhere’s 1993 debut album, Eating the Sea.

Blending evocative soundscapes with heart-wrenching stream of consciousness lyrics and his own plaintive baritone, Michael Plaster evoked David Bowie’s Low, David Sylvian’s Secrets of the Beehive, and Tim Story’s Beguiled, as well as 4AD’s own This Mortal Coil. In other words, Eating the Sea quickly became one of my regular rotations, and I’d often listen to it late at night while lying on my apartment floor with the lights turned off, allowing myself to get lost in Plaster’s music as it washed over me.

As someone who suffered several intense crushes and cases of unrequited love, ballads and confessionals like “Not Breathing,” “Wish,” and “Landed” felt like they were ripped from my own heart, especially when Plaster sighed and intoned lyrics like “These days, hope rides an empty shell” or “Did my heart/Ever brеak the bounds of this stupid body/And soar for what it was meant?” Overwrought and melodramatic? Absolutely. And yet, prior to Eating the Sea, I’d rarely heard lyrics so raw, honest, and intimate — and it struck a chord somewhere deep inside, forging a musical connection that few albums possess even now.