MV + EE
(Ecstatic Peace!)
Even backwoods mystics like to rock out once in a while. With Barn Nova, Matt Valentine and Erika Elder move further away from the Basho/Fahey axis of finger-picked primitivism, closer to Neil Young's amplified guitar anarchy. They get a boost, on "Summer Magic," from J. Mascis, his guitar wheeling and spiraling against slow, shuffling blues and incense-scented chants. Dropping Frampton-esque bends and pull-offs, cranking Crazy Horse-ish turmoil, Mascis puts the "wild" back in this duo's imagined wilderness. But even without Mascis, as on epic "Bedroom Eyes," Valentine approximates the heat and ferocity of Young's fiery dirges, carving arcs of distortion not unlike those on "Down By the River" or "Southern Man."
Still, while Young the guitarist is much in evidence here, Young the craftsman and songwriter is less so. Barn Nova's tunes are loosely strung and a little formless. "Snapperhead" coalesces out of tremulous, shimmery chords and whispery choruses sung in unison, but just out of phase. "Fully Tanked" embellishes monotone verses with dreamy tone washes, picked guitar and harmonica. Only "Get Right Church" (borrowing a melodic line from ZZ Top's "I Thank You") has anything like a hook. Its sly, boogying swagger is only blurred, not obscured by the duo's trademark shimmer. Up to this point, MV + EE's songs have always been too dankly spiritual to do more than smoulder. With this one, they pretty nearly catch fire. And, fittingly for one of freak folk's longest running partnerships, Valentine and Elder eschew politics, history and social commentary for meditations on enduring love. "The moon it wanes, but my love stays/ Overflowing in the grass," croons Valentine on next-to-closing track "Fully Tanked."
Even a rocking MV+EE effort remains, fundamentally, a slow burner. Don't expect to be knocked over right away, but rather won gradually, through indefinite, hazy repetition.
Standout Tracks: "Bedroom Eyes," "Summer Magic" "Get Right Church" JENNIFER KELLY
