#lilah larson

For each piece, Larson starts with a single, lucid idea, often no more than a few notes, and fleshes it out into a fuller statement. “i” for instance, (the pieces are all numbered, from one to ten, Roman-style), starts a trebly twitter of electric guitar notes, set, somewhat nervously, atop a whoosh of space rock effects. The bones of the piece are built a three-note cadence, two quick notes, and a longer one an octave up. Over this, Larson layers a downward sloping melody, longer tones, more meditative, pure and abstract but with the faintest, ghostliest echo of Americana or blues. The stateliness of this melody contrasts in an interesting way with the doppler wails of pedal effects, the past tipping a dusty black hat to the deep space future, in a droning, nodding meditation.

The long “x” (at over 14 minutes, the album’s most expansive track) lays a foundation of droning organ atmospherics, then lets open-ended guitar twang mark out time with subtly blues-inflected meditation. Larson sounds a bit like soundtrack Mark Knoffler here, slowed and freed from song structure.

“v” is the most overtly country of these pieces, with its long, looping bent notes, but once you’ve heard it, you can’t help but read traditional figures into other, more abstract compositions. “iii,” for instance, has the lyrical lilt of porch blues, though distilled and cleared of all impurities. “ii” sounds a bit like a Jack Rose psychedelic raga, but slower and without so many notes.  “viii” is spiky and abrasive, almost punk in its sharp rhythmic attack. But they’re all relatively simple sounds.  These are guitar tones pared to vibrating, resonating essence and allowed to bloom against velvety silence.  

There are no words, either sung or spoken, anywhere on this album, and so no obvious message, whether political or personal. And yet, you can’t help but feel that Larson has expressed something foundational about themself, through the unhurried contemplation of the sounds that move them.