AP Track Review
The dreamy keyboard downbeats tinged with distortion fall over scattered beats while faint horns create a lovely tension (on the other side) as Wolfgang Valbrun vocals on high stir in more psychedelia on the trippy track Blur from the album "The Third Eye" does almost feel... narcotic. If we draw on that analogy, the song would be a designer drug pulling in jazz, soul, dream and psyche pop elements. Drug induced or not, Ephemerals' aesthetic also screams an almost self realized, meditative quality and songwriter Hillman Mondegreen does pull in, is influenced by, techniques from yoga but, more than anything, in Blur, she draws from deep personal reflections. The song is fueled by her experiences as a teenager and blurring her eyes as she viewed her body in a mirror to see or imagine herself as she wanted to be. The album "The Third Eye" also explores the duality of sexuality and the band played with that idea sonically as well, panning masculine and feminine sounds to different sides of the brain. Curious. I have questions like what is a masculine sound or a feminine sound, i.e. what is truly masculine or feminine? That is for another time and while Ephemerals' sound is many, many things, divergent, dreamy, beat driven and such, it is also groovy. Yes, I know that is an old descriptor but it feels so perfect here.
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Robb Donker
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
blur is the first track to be taken from ephemerals forthcoming album – the third eye.
As with every album of ephemeral’s career – the
third eye explores boundaries both sonically and lyrically.
Like blur, the album is a challenging but
ultimately uplifting listen which uses recording techniques to explore the
duality of sexuality with masculine and feminine sounds being panned to different
sides to give each side of the brain a different effect.
blur talks of songwriter
Hillman’s experiences as a teenager trying to visualize her body through blurred
eyes in the mirror to see herself as she wanted to be. Hillman takes influence
from the yoga instruction to look soft over your hands which has the effect of
softening your mind to observe and not judge through the blurring of the hand
which in turn led her back to childhood and the way she tried to view herself
then.
Delivered with the emotion that is ever present
in Wolfgang’s voice the song sets the tone for the album. When recording the
song Wolf pictured himself in a psychic hall of mirrors with his personality
and all the different aspects of who he really is on show.
The combination of songwriter Hillman Mondegreen
and singer Wolfgang Valbrun has proved to be extremely successful both
artistically and commercially. The bond
the pair have is apparent when Wolf tells how singing the songs in the studio
and on stage make him feel intimately connected to the person that wrote them.
ephemerals launched in 2014 – self releasing debut
LP nothing is easy before signing to Jalapeno Records who re-released their
debut and the following two albums chasin ghosts and egg tooth.
In 2016 ephemerals featured on I Feel So Bad –
a remake of their song you made us change by French dance producer Kungs.
The song was a major airplay hit introducing the band to the world beyond their
core fanbase.
Starting out in a classic soul style on nothing
is easy – ephemerals have never repeated themselves across their previous three
albums on the respective subjects of love, death and rebirth. By their third LP
egg tooth the style was more avant garde jazz than soul band and the third
eye pushes that change even further embracing psychedelia, spoken word and spiritual
jazz but with the common thread of Wolf’s voice and Hillmans’s words.
blur is to be
released on October 25 2019 and will be followed by the third eye in January
2020. ephemerals will tour the third eye
from February 2020 – for full dates please see their website.
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