Living Is Easy / The Circle Chant

When folks speak of the golden pastures of “The Flenser Sound” there are plenty of visuals that evoke out of the darkness—perhaps the hard edge of frame of an expressionist painting, or a major chord coloring a void into infinity. The sensibility may feel “West Coast” with a sunny beam traveling up a side of City Hall or tracing the curves of the Capitol building, but the geography of these two EPs are much more nuanced. The first nuance is the dissonant entity of Brandeis and Ehnahre—the academy and brutality in collision. The second nuance is the seemingly literal but not so literal ode to horticulture, which recalls lush open fields, hummingbirds drinking from the stream and blood red tomatoes. “hey Tomato, / feel the spring. / give yourself another chance / before you’re down. / right now.” This melding of topologies is a pretty apt metaphor to how the soaring clouds of notes refract back into the lakes and oscillate like ripples. The use of “organic” in music journalism [if you can call that this] is beyond overused, but nevertheless the playing is ‘porous” and amoebic. The instruments gently pry open a honeycomb to release the fragrance inside. The balm eventually settles in the cracks of the concrete as the walls come down. The energy fluctuates across the compositions and wavers while the city is overcome with brightly glowing vines like Poison Ivy’s mutagen. There is a folkloric element throughout that paints a locale that is truly outworldly. Whether you’re grabbing a pint at the Middle East in Cambridge or staring at the skull in the Lodge Room, any place can summon the thorns and the buds of this multifaceted outfit.