HAILED as a sonic architect, engineering other worldly spaces, West London’s Westerman is making gentle waves as the most exciting new artist to have emerged this year.

On October 18 he releases his new EP Ark – featuring the gorgeous Albatross – and celebrates by heading to Oxford’s Jericho Tavern on Wednesday for a gig which promises to be a transformative experience.

“Albatross is set on a lake in my mind where I go to escape the worries of day to day existence,” he says of the track.

“It’s a more innocent and natural place.

“There is a growing impingement on that place as time starts to feel like it moves faster, and more demands emerge.

“The song looks at that threat both to the physical environment and our own psychology through the inevitability of an ever changing landscape.”

Since releasing debut EP Call and Response, Westerman has been winning over lovers of atmospheric pop with his dulcet tones and blend of magical-realism, which references Nick Drake, David Byrne and the US cellist Arthur Russell.

This year’s breakout single Confirmation and follow-ups I Turned Away, Easy Money, and Edison saw him build his following among tastemakers, influencers and regular gig-goers and listeners.

Westerman’s collaboration with producer Bullion is at the heart of the EP’s mood.

“After Albatross a lot of ideas came very quickly,” he says.

“I just tried to follow all of them while they were still really fresh. It was an intense process with little sleep and very little contact with anyone or anything.”

Albatross was written over a three-day period, he explains.

“I’d been travelling a lot more than I’m used to and was really stealing time to write.

“I had this brief window to go into myself and try to make sense of the shifts that were going on around me and I wrote Albatross.

“I think the feeling of retreating from a hectic external schedule influenced how I wrote it.

“I wanted the recording to feel looser than the tracks released earlier this year because the music was so new and vital when we recorded it.

“There hadn’t been so much of the re-drafting and editing I usually go through, so I wanted that to be mirrored in the production.”

With an album in the works, Westerman has been biding his time waiting for the opportune moment to make his mark.

Now, readying his next tour – which includes US and European dates, slots at Reeperbahn and his largest headline show to date at London’s Oslo, the next phase in his evolution is now.

“Ark is a symbol of solace and of transition,” he says. “I wanted this music to feel empowering as a challenge to my usual rhetoric and hopefully this set of tracks can provide that for the listener.”

Ark is out on October 18 on Chris Pearson’s Blue Flowers label and Albatross is out now.

* See him at the Jericho Tavern, Oxford, on Wednesday. Tickets from wegottickets.com