Sylvan Esso is an odd meeting between Amelia Meath from sometime Appalachian a cappella folk trio Mountain Man (formed at college in Vermont in 2009) and Nick Sanborn ex Megafaun member, bassist, living in Milwaukee, turned electronic producer working out of Durham, North Carolina under the name Made Of Oak.
The album opens with Hey Mami, a cappella, it’s a Christian folk camp invaded by robots. The song exemplifies their idea perfectly and that is perhaps why it is the opener, but it’s not actually their best song.
The next and nicely named Dreamy Bruises is less about the concept but a better piece of music. There’s something primitive in Sanborn’s programming and although it’s appealing sonically, it’s success lies in what Meath has made of it. ” Black eyes turn to marigolds” stands out in the lyric.
They are back on track with the concept on Could I Be, a slightly mad vocal from Meath sounding like she has escaped from somewhere and is trying to convince us she isn’t actually mad – the doctors won’t have it and ship her straight back to the asylum with Garner’s insistent beat and early Human League soundscape pounding and bubbling in her head – unfortunately only she can hear it.
Wolf has that “forest girl trapped in a lab” feel about it, like she was captured, stunned and awakened under intrusive lights and cold eyes, metal instruments on silver trays aside her wheeled trolley bed, primed for study.
Dress, goes Laurie Anderson, meets Dubstep at the village hall community meeting, in the middle of the piece, playful looped voices and buzzing analog bass synth make for an ironic hipster American synth folk success story. The hipsters don’t even know they like it yet.
It’s fascinating how the past lives in this future music. On HSKT, The Roches meet minimal early Metamatic John Foxx on the American East Coast, inventing something that only works if you analyse it.Organic, Electronic music is an old idea, and a cappella folk even older than the Electronic German innovators of the sixties and seventies (gasp) yes there was music before Kraftwerk with strange wooden instruments with gut strings – they were called lutes evolving into guitars strummed by wayfaring maidens and rascal troubadours as an accompaniment to bawdy lyrics as they sang their songs all the way up to electricity and beyond. On HSKT, the future and the past meet – and even like each other.
Coffee is firmly in the future, it’s not quite indestructible clothing that doesn’t stain, or doors that whoosh as you approach them. Not exactly romance in space but if Edie Brickell had been born on Mars instead of Dallas she might sound like this. It’s a more sophisticated Nick Sanborn on this track and he gives Meath a catchy piece to weave her own catchy tune. It’s a less dense Lamb meets a less weird Stina Nordenstam.
Sylvan Esso – Coffee Lyrics
True, it’s dance, we know the moves
The bar, the dip, the woo
Though the words are true
The state is old news
Wrap me in your arms
I can’t feel it but
Wrap me in your arms
I can’t feel it but
Get up, get down
Get up, get down
Feel the general attention
And stop, see the mix won’t work
Get up, get down
Get up, get down
Get up
Sinner ends a saint with a pair of feet change
I know my rose will dry upon the skin
Just like a name I remember hearing
Wild winter, warm coffee
Mind’s gone, do you love me?
Blazing summer, cold coffee
Baby’s gone, do you love me?
Wrap me in your arms
I can’t feel it but
Wrap me in your arms
I can’t feel it but
Get up, get down
Get up, get down
Feel the general attention
And stop, see the mix won’t work
Get up, get down
Get up, get down Get up
Sinner ends a saint with a pair of feet change
Get up, get down
Get up, get down
Feel the general attention
And stop, see the mix won’t work
Get up, get down
Get up, get down
Get up
Sinner ends a saint with a pair of feet change
My baby does the hanky-panky, baby
My baby does
(Rock me)
My baby does the hanky-panky, baby
(In your arms)
My baby does
Get up, get down
Get up, get down
Feel the general attention
And stop, see the mix won’t work
Get up, get down
Get up, get down
Get up
Sinner ends a saint with a pair of feet change
Uncatena fits disparate elements together, like all songwriters, they are making it up as they go along, but some of the decisions Sanborn makes in regards to sounds are unpredictable, a papery Kraftwerk snare becomes a thudding dance synth chorus – Meath somehow makes sense of it adding reverb to her vocal. Rhythms fight each with no winners, Meath floats around the battlefield of the backing track attempting to clear up the mess, putting an angelic wand on the twisted corpses. Again the idea might be better than the result and ultimately you get used to it. Like all good albums, it takes many listens, it takes commitment, it takes time and what might sound awkward, incongruous, soon becomes your favourite car crash.
The penultimate track Play It Right is the song that brought them together as explained in their bio, the spark that created the relationship, with both of them getting what they wanted, escaping the scary dead end of their particular genre by attempting the absurd as the key to their transcendence.
Last but not least the album closes with Come Down. It’s the solo voice of Amanda Randall Meath turning into a harmony with subtle organ and it’s lovely, organic and folk but you are just waiting for the missile in the flowerbed. It never comes, instead it’s the most subtle of Nick Sanborn’s electronic static in the background, understated and restrained.
This album takes some listens, you need to listen to the songs, the voice, the electronics, the rhythms and the idea all separately and then altogether once you’ve got with it. After that you might be able to break out of your folk or your electronic world and join them on both sides of the glass simultaneously.
http://www.partisanrecords.com/artists/sylvan-esso/
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