Esme White and the darkly spun folk tale of "Mother's Ugly Angels"

 

"my momma don't pray for heaven / simply because she believes / our God likes his women sculpted for his fantasies..." 


Esme White has a voice with the weight of an anchor... chained to your ankle. The palpable gravitas feels safe on land but tossed into an ocean and you will sink into the void. It is a point of concern. Esme's vocal countenance is so razor sharp artful that it could feel like a sonic compulsion so... if you already have any kind of addiction, you may want to tread lightly. 

My first introduction to the London based, New York born singer-songwriter, musician is the stirring folk confessional "Mother's Ugly Angels". From the onset, against plucked and picked acoustic guitar, Esme's powerful voice is not coy with her darkly spinning poetry. 

Of the song she shares:

"I have been obsessed with angels since I was a little girl, but have always found ugliness and holiness to be good bedfellows, so I wrote this song. Somewhat coming from a place of frustration, as I see more and more people strangle their souls with superficial beauty. Somewhat as an ode to the wild instinctual ugly part of the spirit."

As the song builds on itself with percussion, bass tones, vast electric guitar embellishments and backing vox / harmonies, the rustic folk song takes on more urbane pop and baroque pop atmospheres. At one point I have the sense of barefoot stomps on a Church wooden floor and the flutter of strings but I admit I may have imagined them. 

Esme's storytelling is so formidable that it is easy to get swept up in her dark tales and that is a good thing. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5ZMVd3ODQ7fyFDQI7QCCCH



Esme White is a London based, New York born singer-songwriter with a love of storytelling and poetry. She began writing a collection mid lockdown as a way to inject poems with a vibrancy and pulse they were lacking, and has been writing and performing ever since. Drawing on influences from country, folk and punk, her songs combine various characters she has encountered in everyday life, family history, pubs, and various mythologies. Her debut single ‘Pearly Gate Crashers’ is out now.

Esme White, indie rock, folk, baroque, freak folk, psychedelic, "Mother's Ugly Angels", New York, London, singer songwriter, musician, darkly spun poetry, dynamic vocal style,