Trollheart

Title: The Invisible Comes to Us
Artist: Anna & Elizabeth
Genre: Folk/World/Country
Artist Reaction: Never heard of them so neutral
Genre Reaction: No problems here
Familiarity: Zero
Suggested by: Frownland
A Little Background: Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth Laprelle are an American duo who specialise in integrating traditional folk music, Americana and especially Appalachian music with experimental techniques. Anna plays banjo while Elizabeth sings and is a multi-instrumentalist.
Expectations: The word “experimental” always worries me, but I don’t fear too much that I’ll hate this. I’m going for a hopefully pretty strong Like.
Overview: This is their second album, and no, I have no idea what the title means, though it sounds vaguely spiritual or religious.

Jeano: Starts acapella, very haunting, reminds me a little of Suzanne Vega, then deep organ sighs in, and Anna and Elizabeth begin to harmonise, which is very nice indeed. Can’t find much in the way of details on the album but it sounds like maybe horns and some sort of bells being added in, which gives an extra layer to the music. Fading out now on sort of oriental-style chimes. Very nice start.
Black Eyed Susan: Darker and more brooding this time, with heavy, sullen drumbeats and the banjo leading the tune, organ in the background kind of, then that all fades out and we’re left with the vocal, solo this time, and banjo, sort of a distant rolling percussion which also fades out. One of the longer songs on the album, this runs for just over five minutes. Nice sort of stuttering effect, which sounds like someone crumpling up tinfoil or static on the radio. Fits in well.
Ripest of Apples: Led by banjo again this time, a softer vocal with a kind of more upbeat tone that the last two tracks, sort of a country feel to this. Drums get very insistent and powerful here near the end.
Irish Patriot: First time since the opener we hear the two ladies sing together. They should do this more. Another droning organ complementing them, not a carbon copy by any means of “Jeano” but quite close in structure. Some sort of taped speech now, getting a little confused, with a swirling keyboard line and now alto sax, which pulls it back on track.
John of Hazelgreen: And more vocal harmonies, almost acapella but accompanied by soft tripping banjo, and sounds like there might be flute in there too. Nice.
Woman is Walking: Pure acapella as the two girls harmonise. It’s short, so I hope it stays like - no, there’s organ and some small percussion coming in now. Well it’s still really nice; I just would have preferred, for such a short track, them to perform it acapella.
Virginia Rambler: Basically acapella again but just one voice this time, with some sporadic percussion behind her. If I assume that to be Anna singing, then Elizabeth has now joined her, and there’s a droning organ adding its effect too.
By the Shore: Sounds like Waits does folk for a few moments, then the organ slides in (oo-****ing-er!), the vocal fast and sort of echoed in delay (not sure if it’s the same voice, probably not). I’d say this is the first one I haven’t really liked. Reprises the chorus from “Woman is Walking” for some reason. I guess this is where they use the experimental technique, lots of odd and discordant effects, doesn’t really work for me personally.
Farewell to Erin: I read recently that Appalachian music originated when settlers arrived from Ireland, Scotland and England, so it’s not such a surprise to hear them singing about Ireland again. Kind of adds an extra dimension to the album for me, I guess. I can’t say I’m mad about the vocal here though, which seems to almost mirror the drone synth, itself at times sounding like badly-tuned bagpipes. Very discordant and therefore not music to my ears. This also happens to be the longest on the album, almost six and a half minutes. Just my luck.
Mother in the Graveyard: Like this one a lot better. Sort of a slow, bouncy banjo with the two ladies harmonising, which is really nice.
Margaret: Starts out with an annoying announcement. Not sure about the point in that, then some crackly recording of an old song with I think the girls adding some of their own musical accompaniment to the old recording. Clever, but perhaps too much so. Doesn’t do anything for me. At least it’s short. Bad end to a decent album.


Conclusion: Certainly don’t hate it, but it’s probably not something I would come back to, and I wouldn’t be searching out any more of their material. There’s nothing necessarily bad about it, but the combination of kind of weird electronic effects, recordings and voices over folk music doesn’t really work for me. Two lovely voices, two very accomplished musicians, but even without the experimental stuff I’d probably still be saying, nice but that’s about it.

So, Love or Hate? I’ll give this a Like. It’s not a strong one though. Whatever that means.

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