Whited Sepulchre, the same label that brought us Midwife's Like Author, Like Daughter, my single favourite record of 2017, recently reached out with their newest tape from Cincinatti's Brianna Kelly and Salt Lake City based Sympathy Pain, two names that I admittedly was not familiar with up until now, though it only took a few seconds of listening to realize just how much I've been missing out on. At Stone in Focus, we're beginning to receive a fairly steady stream of album submissions, and while I deeply enjoy diving into the world of each and every one of these new discoveries, there is something hugely gratifying about opening up that mysterious folder for the first time and immediately identifying with the sounds that come pouring out of the speaker, as if the music itself has reached across great distances and multiple time zones specifically to find a place between your ears. An undeniable sense of familiarity and comfort permeate the entirety of this album, like meeting a complete stranger for the first time, somehow knowing, beyond a sliver of a doubt, that you were always meant to meet; your lives always having been on a trajectory towards the inevitability of each other.
Avoiding the often unavoidable fragmentation often associated with split records, the songs here flow into each other with ease, transitioning organically and balancing each others sonic and emotional spaces while also providing a strong sense of pacing and direction throughout, the aural equivalent to a long walk in the woods at night; the sights, sounds, and smells constantly changing alongside the thoughts and emotional responses that provide them context.
Brianna Kelly starts things off with a short cycle of three of the most "song" oriented tracks to be found on the album, vocals descending from the heavens on soft beams of light, peering between the foliage on opener When You See It with the gently repeated phrase "When you see it, you will know it", a reminder that something incredible and profound exists just around the corner, if only you keep your eyes open to the possibility. As if a direct follow-through on that promise, To Behold You, with it's ethereal, swirling guitars and haunted vocals that fill the room like incense smoke, sounds like the pure distillation of some profound, painful realization; the kind that forces you to face your barest self, a process both incredibly difficult and absolutely necessary in the search for higher truth.
Sanctus, acting as a sort of sonic transition from the corporeal towards the abstract, floats patiently on softly sustained piano notes, each note given the space to breathe and fill the room, before being sucked back into the speakers like conjured spirits. As soft guitars pan across the horizon like streaks of light, a familiar and ghostly voice sings in reverse, like the unspooling of memories, recalling moments of beauty and tenderness, vulnerability and stillness.
Blanketburner opens Sympathy Pain's side of the tape with the swelling waves of thick, low frequency drones, rolling in like the gentle low tide on some imagined shore. Delayed guitar notes flicker and weave through each other in a firefly staccato, stuttering across the skyline like the after images of light under closed eyelids. The spectral echoes of buried percussive samples begin to emerge, sounding like the soft chug of a train, carrying you into a state of unconsciousness, as it rolls unhurried towards the inner horizons of the unconscious mind. If Blanketburner is the train that takes us into the land of dreams, Bless This Ugly Heart is the the one you transfer to on the other side, carrying you even further into the half formed landscapes of the mind. Lonely guitar notes chime like church bells in the distance, like the hints of some sort of spiritual epiphany shrouded in dream logic, our somnambulant locomotive releasing bursts of colourful steam that distort the air surrounding it. As the train picks up speed, all the tiny details begin to fade; your name, your identity. Eventually, even the train begins to fade. Like the sounds that formed it, it has served it's purpose; delivering you safely into the arms of the ether. You have arrived.