Posts Tagged ‘E’

Ē – ” ĒP “

Posted: June 30, 2019 in MUSIC
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Ē press picture

Describing themselves as a ‘lo-pop’ band, Oslo’s Ē formed when Ingvild Nærum (Are You Having Fun Yet) and Chiara Cavallari (FOAMMM) decided to join forces—Cavallari playing guitar and lending some vocals while Nærum takes charge of lead vocals and drums. With the addition of Sigrun Sæbø Åland (Hysj) on bass, Ē’s full line-up crystallised, and the band have just released their debut EP, snappily titled ĒP, via Bergen-based indie label Eget Selskap.

Thematically, the EP deals with the frightening size of the contemporary, globalised world, as well as the coping mechanisms we might employ to deal with it. This is supported by a loose and intuitive sound that focuses more on the feel of the music rather than any technical wizardry. “Instrumentally, we just try to run with what feels cool and exciting,” the band explain, “and even a bit silly.” The result is something at once thoughtful and organic, Ē’s double-punch of reflective and ramshackle.

Opening with lead single ‘Afraid of the Ocean’, ĒP throws you headlong into Ē’s distinctive world, carved out of retro-pop textures and supported by a relatable fixation on loneliness and insignificance. “Hiding in the dark,” they sing, “put a fence around my heart / it’s better to isolate / than sit around and wait, for someone to care.”

‘If You Asked’ is far heavier, a needling darkness pulsing at the edges of the track, portraying the insidious dread that marks the contemporary moment. Things switch up again on ‘Doing Stuff Alone’, the deadpan attitude bringing to mind the straight-faced humour of Patio in its way of transforming the mundane into the ridiculous through nothing but tone. “I’m always too much, but still not enough,” they sing, “when I’m surrounded I feel so excessive […] so I’m doing stuff alone.”

Closer ‘Now and Then I Feel Destroyed’ is something of an amalgamation of the dark and peppy style, twinkling with mischievous wit and anchored by a brooding weight. The song is indicative of ĒP and Ē as a whole, straining beneath the alienation of living today, fighting back with a self-awareness as though cynicism is not some negative force but rather a method of self-preservation.

ĒP is out now via Eget Selskap Records.

EELS – ” The Deconstruction ” 2×10” Vinyl

Posted: April 8, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Eels thedeconstruction cover 3000x3000

The Eels’ twelfth studio album and first in four years, The Deconstruction, was performed by E (Mark Oliver Everett) and his longtime collaborators Koool G Murder and P-Boo alongside The Deconstruction Orchestra & Choir. It was produced by E, with some songs produced by Mickey Petralia for the first time since 1998’s Electro-Shock Blues. Eels mastermind E says of the new album, “Here are 15 new Eels tracks that may or may not inspire, rock or not rock you. The world is going nuts. But if you look for it, there is still great beauty to be found. Sometimes you don’t even have to look for it. Other times you have to try to make it yourself. And then there are times you have to tear something apart to find something beautiful inside.”

It has been more than two decades since Eels first burst onto the scene with their gloriously offbeat debut album Beautiful Freak. Since then, the band’s chief creative force Mark Oliver Everett – better known simply as E – has delivered a dozen albums, written an autobiography, penned music for films an television shows and even fronted a BAFTA-winning documentary on the subject his father Hugh Everett, the physicist responsible for the ‘many-worlds’ theory which posits the existence of infinite universes.

After recording and touring relentlessly for much of the last couple of decades he decided to take a well-earned break, but this week Eels return with their first new album since 2014 and ahead of its release we sat down with the man himself to talk about the new album, his forays into acting, and hanging out with the cast of Mad Men…

Official video for “Today is the Day” from THE DECONSTRUCTION, out now!

ESKIMEAUX – ” Tiny Desk Concert ” 28th August 2015

Posted: December 1, 2015 in MUSIC
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Eskimeaux’s OK is easily my most played album of the year, next to the Courtney Barnett record. There’s lighthearted, almost childlike beauty in the way Gabrielle Smith puts words to song. Here are OK’s first lines:

In my dreams you’re a bathtub running,
You are warm and tender,
And bubbling,
Oh, you are cold and bristling and struggling

As an adopted child, Smith discovered that her biological father is Tlingit Eskimo; she describes the -eaux suffix as “just a playful jumble of letters that represents the way I record — a confusing layering of sounds that somehow coalesce into something simple.”

Smith has performed at the Tiny Desk before: She’s part of a New York art collective that includes Told Slant, Small Wonder and Bellows, and Bellows played here not too long ago. Some of the players in those bands sing with Smith in her final song — one of my favorite songs of the year — called “I Admit I’m Scared,” which ends with a few perfectly chosen words:

And if I had a dime for every time I’m freaking out,
We could fly around the world
Or just get out of your parents’ house,

Set List
“Folly” 00:00
“A Hug Too Long” 02:42
“I Admit I’m Scared” 05:25