This was kind of a nice surprise.It's hard to tell what you might be getting into with a new Night People release, but it's always sure to be fresh and inventive music nonetheless.EMA's newest offering, a 32 minute cassette entitled "Little Sketches on Tape" is just that.Erika Anderson, formerly of the dreamy avant-folk act- Gowns, gives us a beautiful and mysterious cut and paste tape collage.The entire album is made up of completely spontaneous clips of hazy vocal play, fragments of lullabies and soft-spoken poetic charm.The guitars are chopped into a million pieces and given out a bit at a time, notes always bending upward and outward, and disappearing into thin air before an actual chord is constructed.Lush piano strides are thrown in at random and play only a tiny role in this, but add to her woozy melodies quite nicely.Hints of folk and early jazz make their rounds,but no more than to nudge your brain a bit either way,if only for a split second.
These songs possess a heap of charm, a cleverness that lies in the fact that you never really hear a complete "song", in the traditional sense anyway.The polite rush of anticipation and wonder you get from this as a whole, is more than enough to carry it's weight.This is a heartfelt, and deeply personal project,and I really hope we get to hear more from her.Stunning.
Get it from Night People.
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