Cursillistas – Observe Ember Weeks (L’animaux Tryst, 2012)

Cursillistas – Observe Ember Weeks
L’animaux Tryst 2012

Cursillistas was a psych folk project headed by Matt Lajoie (and often with the help of Dawn Marna and others) based in Portland Maine. Lajoie and co.’s efforts have more recently manifested themselves into a new band called Herbcraft, releasing a couple albums on the Woodsist imprint Hello Sunshine. Observe Ember Weeks is Cursillistas’ last studio album, written and recorded around the time they were working on their other releases for Digitalis.

“Lake Dig Rising (Muddy Water Spell)” is composed of classic Cursillistas reverb drenched guitar drones and vocals supported by tambourine hits. Lajoie’s vocals mimic the guitar drones, chanting elongated lyrics in a raga-esque kind of fashion. It’s this unique kind of smoky atmosphere specific to Cursillistas production that I often enjoy. “Bed of Weeds” is another great piece, though it is more melodic, featuring layers of picking acoustic guitars. The background vocals sound like a looping “oo” and have quite an enchanting quality. “Frontier Gothic” actually does have a more “gothic” sound, perhaps due in large part to the progression of the melody. The song is also more upbeat and rocking, backed by a minimal tom-crash drum set. “New Seeds” is a more ambient, drone piece backed by drums, bells, and singing bowls. The bowls create very a nice, low resonance. Throughout the album Cursillistas wavers in a nice place between droning ambience and more melodic progressions. “Bona Dea” might be a good example of this juxtaposition, consisting of endlessly repeating guitar hooks, hypnotic rhythms, and chanting vocals. “Saudade” immediately drew me in because I’m such a sucker for polyrhythmic clapping. Joined by blues-y, acoustic guitar twang and, by now, well known vocals, it makes for a pretty enjoyable listen.

LP for purchase: http://lanimauxtryst.com/order.htm

Endless Caverns – Sensei Deprivation (Existential Cloth, 2011)

Endless Caverns – Sensei Deprivation
Existential Cloth 2011

Endless Caverns is Matt Lajoie’s solo project who has performed as part of Cursillistas and now Herbcraft. "Mood Repeater" starts off with some lo-fi, organ sounding, droning chords. Lajoie holds onto the same chord for awhile, adding other notes in the progression very slowly. The drones begin to waver very slowly as a scorching, reverb drenched guitar solos in what sounds like a middle eastern mode. The droning persists as the solo drops out, and then a really bassy drone enters the mix, dominating the rest of the sound. A real down tempo, burner of a guitar comes back in, riffing about. Things start getting noisier, with warm distortion. Free form guitar gets some wah-wah treatment. "Guitars In the Sun" starts off with a repeating guitar phrase, with what sounds like some improvisation on top of this phrase. Same lo-fi quality, same scorched reverb. The piece begins to extend itself spacio-temporally, adding more droning layers of guitar. New phrases build on top of this dissolving foundation. The tempo is really long-form, creating a super tripped out, psychedelic sensation. On "Fringe Elements" there's a field recording of people yelling joyfully, clapping, mixed with a wavering guitar drone. With the electric guitar drone, some acoustic guitar drone subtly enters the mix as well. It becomes apparent that the acoustic is being hit with something, used more as a percussion instrument. The electronic drones become more washed out. Electric guitar solos get a bit more wild and freeky nearing the cold end of the tape.



Cassette for purchase: http://www.tomentosarecords.com/existentialcloth.html