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Elly Roberts reviews
Wichita
- July 2006
- Rating: 6/10
Fascinating release by retro-folksters The Espers.
Trad British folk is their inspirational template, with an American twist onthe genre.
Their slow-paced ethereal music is quite mesmerising, once you get into it youll probably need a bit of time actually. You may even need to be in acertain mood to appreciate it, but dont give up. Espers is Greg Weeksbaby, who masterminds the whole feel which draws (some) comparison with thelegendary Fairport Convention (though theyre more upbeat in many ways).
Espers appear to possess far earlier roots than Fairport themselves. MegBairds plaintive and pristine singing is both touching and endearing,perfectly suited to the albums ambience. Musically, its a bit of adrifter and quite doomy in places (because of the drone and sombre violin),so you need to make time to get to grips with its occasional complexity.
Opener Dead Queen takes you to some medieval glade with mist rolling throughthe trees – you can feel the minstrels coming out to play at some banquet.There are also plenty of psychedelic excursions thrown into the melting potto make it contemporary, with Widows Weed more like an earlyPink Floyd jam.
Cruel Storm is a gentle plodder with Bairdswistfulness in full flow, possibly the most beautiful song of the lot,only to be outdone by the shining Children Of Stone and MansfieldAnd Cyclops.Closer Moon Occults The Sun bookends the album in typical mysticalstyle. Shortest song comes in at 5m 17 s longest is 8m 54s so Espersarent in a rush to win you over. Its the charm and subtle compositionsthat eventually grab you.
Youre unlikely to revisit it very often, or even dismiss it as downrightweird, though youll never forget it.
This kind of updating is nothing new: 11 is a real musos album, so youvebeen warned.
Weblinks:Espers.org /Wichita-Recordings.com
The full list of tracks included are :
1. Dead Queen
2. Widows Weed
3. Cruel Storm
4. Children Of Stone
5. Mansfield And Cyclops
6. Dead King
7. Moon Occults The Sun
Elly Roberts passed away in 2011, but he was a man who was so passionate about all types of music and loved meeting his musical heroes, such as Mick Hucknall at a book signing at the Trafford Centre, Manchester in 2007.
A former teacher and also a music journalist, DJ and radio presenter on local community station Calon FM, plus appearances on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 2, Elly started doing reviews for DVDfever.co.uk in 2004 and he did the majority of the CD and concerts reviews on the website.
I know also that he loved getting away for the summer to Spain and I hope that wherever he is now he is enjoying the hot sunshine and, as one of his friends has said on his Facebook page, that he is interviewing his musical heroes.