Espers Albums (4)
What The Critics Say
It's been a pretty vast musical journey so far: from the freak folk of Espers' debut album to the wide-ranging psychedelia of their covers EP, to 2006's II, an album stepped in British folk formalism and drenched in overtone modal drones and careening electric guitars that added sheer rock power to the flowery proceedings. On III, the Philadelphia quintet do a bit of a mirror flip. While this album sounds brighter, cheerier, and more upbeat musically, lyrically, these songs inhabit a somewhat darker world. That's fine, the meld of classic American folk-rock, psychedelia, Brit-folk discipline, and the leftover traces of the acid folk of their origins all combine to make a recording of beauty, depth, complex dimensions, and dynamics, underscored by their best songwriting to date. The core of the band features vocalist Meg Baird, and multi-instrumentalists Brooke Sietinsons, and Greg Weeks (who also engineered and produced the set), with Vetiver drummer Otto Hauser and cellist Helena Espvall (who appeared on II as well) rounding out the band. Just compare the first two numbers on III: they are ample evidence of an evolving, more complex songwriting process. There is the near-jaunty folk-rock of "I Can't See Clear," with Baird's alto falling directly into the double-waltz time of the acoustic guitars, bassline, and other stringed instruments until the chorus, where melodically distorted electric guitars are added to the mix and push the track to the margin. The melody line is pronounced, repetitive, and catchy -- but the subject matter is anything but light. "The Road of Golden Dust" that features Baird's and Weeks' voices twinned on the verses, is creepier, murkier, and far more haunting. Its lilting melody slithers alone on a lithe backbeat and hypnotic guitar patters. Its notes are much more restrained, but the instrumental passages are labyrinthine. "That Moon Song," with it's country-ish tinge, done at a cough syrup pace, blends electric guitars, keyboards, what sounds like a Wurlitzer, and reverb effects along with Espvall's cello and Baird's vocal to create a texture worthy of dreaming. The elegantly slow yet piercing electric guitar breaks morph it into full-on soundscape though its songlike qualities remain. The thick, cushiony textures of distorted instruments collide in "That Which Darkly Thrives" as Weeks' voice hovers and floats above the only clearly heard instruments in the mix -- those of the rhythm section; Baird's backing vocal cascades into Weeks', pouring it all through a nearly cinematic sense of the ethereal. "Colony," whose lyrics are impure poetry, is flat-out gorgeous in a slightly sinister, Pentangle kind of way. The album closer, "Trollslända," stands in sharp contrast with its breezy, weave of sprightly bassline, clipped snare and hi-hat, phased electric guitars, and reverbed acoustic six-strings as Weeks and Baird sing the verses in harmony. It's a lullaby of sorts that melds the ancient with a present-tense melancholy. The cello solo by Espvall becomes another voice in the track, and is one of the loveliest things she's ever played on a record. The cut's climax is one of the high points on any Espers record. This band may take their time between releases now, but they get exponentially more sophisticated and adventurous, not only in their composed material, but in their approach to making records. This is just stellar top to bottom. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Where Espers' self-titled debut album was drenched in sunshine melodies, traditional folk influences, and psychedelic acid-folk sounds ranging from Fairport Convention and Donovan to Six Organs of Admittance and Super Furry Animals, and their creepy, apocalyptic EP -- who else would cover the Durutti Column, Nico, Michael Hurley, and the Blue Öyster Cult on the same record as a reverent version of "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair" -- neither of these offerings truly prepare the listener for II. This Philly quintet fronted by Greg Weeks, Meg Baird, and Brooke Sietinsons have gone over the edge this time while retaining just a modicum of restraint to hold all the pieces together. The proof is in the kool-aid so to speak. The opener is the sharp, gloomy, 17th century-styled Elizabethan folk of "Dead Queen," that feels more like Pentangle, and it's countered in "Widow's Weed," the very next track, by a slew of screeing electric guitars atop a snare-heavy drumkit awash in feedback that never quite lets go of the early 1800s in its melody. Here Eastern modal drone meets trad-Anglo balladry in an opium den of thieves and warriors. "Cruel Storm," uses a sparse wash of modal jazz chords to create an open-tuned dirge that floats on an augmented key elegance; it is adorned by skeletal percussion and whispering feedback in the outer reaches. Its restraint is deceptive as Baird's vocals are a bead hinting that this cruel storm is not a disaster because the disaster has already happened. There are musical hints of a sonic whiplash daring itself to reoccur in the mirror-distorted strings which cut in and out sharply from the margins as Baird sings of something out of reach but whose memory is distinct, horrific, now absent yet full of dread. The drifting psychedelic folk of "Children of Stone," suggests a dark, bleary eyed cousin to It's A Beautiful Day's "White Bird" hippie optimism. This is pushed a step in each direction in "Mansfield and Cyclops," where the repetitive Vini Reilly-styled guitars Weeks plays cancel themselves out as stray bits of 20th century West Coast strummery (think "Suite: Judy Blues Eyes"), and darkly Bert Jansch-resuscitation Steeleye Span's post-Martin Carthy experimentalism. Once more, Baird's voice (in her best Kendra Smith-kisses-Joni Mitchell mindwarp) sets a crumbling, sodden and ancient terrain to anchor to as Möebius strip basses, drums (yes, and those rubbery guitars) emboldened by myriad instruments (dumbecks, cello, an omnichord) vie for the washed-out hazy sun of nether backporch tomorrowland. In "Dead King," hints of Shirley and Dolly Collins -- sung to Helen Adam's weird, late-night gothic poetry -- and David Tibet's post-apocalyptic folkery meet the Velvets' "Venus in Furs" in the Castle Gormenghast hosted by Count Leopold von Sacher-Masoch himself. The final track, "Moon Occults the Sun," finds Weeks slowly sawing cellos, acoustic bright, rounded electrics, and droning single-string modal guitars flowing through Weeks' and Baird's voices, ushering in varying degrees of clouds, darkness, and the spirit of black night itself. Once more, one can hear the Velvets creeping through the underbrush, but they're not the only ones -- here is where Comus and Fresh Maggots offer their blunted blades, black with mud and mercury under a sky where the moon has turned to blood. Dumbek is a Doric transistorized organ, here fuzzed-out over intensifying guitars and doggedly persistent basses carrying forth the banner of a folk music that never existed for any folk at all, but merely as the face of their fears. (If "Cortez the Killer" had been composed by a court minstrel's band instead of a raggedy-ass, wasted Neil Young, it might have sounded like this.) All of these songs are sure to be long-ranging from just over five to nearly nine minutes -- but it's what gives Espers the chance not only to seamlessly blend their many influences -- it isn't their fault all this stuff had been done before -- but to create a kind of ancient-to-modern blend of Anglo song that points to a murky future while erasing an even sketchier past. Espers II is both wondrous and troubling. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Acid-folk maestro Greg Weeks' psychedelic trio Espers -- with Meg Baird and Brooke Sietinsons -- has created a delicate and blissfully unsettling debut. Weeks' autoharp on tracks like "Flowery Noontide" conjures images of home-baked '60s folk played by sincere and optimistic flower children and dark and dreamy drifters. "Meadow," similarly, recalls the sunshine and doom chamber pop and subtle acoustic guitar of Donovan on "Susan on the West Coast Waiting" or "Atlantis," or Fairport Convention. "Riding" could easily fit on the Super Furry Animals brilliant and catchy West Coast pop collection Phantom Power -- but then "Voices" is nearly as hazy and Far Eastern as Six Organs of Admittance, and "Hearts & Daggers" is over eight minutes of druggy, medieval-inspired British baroque noise. Espers' music is entirely incongruous with the trends of 2003-2004 -- from the devil-may-care rock of Jet and the Strokes, to the over-the-top, cosmic, and sexy wunder-metal of the Darkness. But you can't help but feel that Espers are onto something -- not quite the soft-is-the-new-loud irony of Belle & Sebastian, but a more sinister and trippy picture of a foreboding horizon in the midst of the most beautiful sunset. ~ Charles Spano, All Music Guide
