Every so often, an album comes along and completely floors you. It may be because it was so unexpected; it may be because it is something that is moving on all different kinds of levels; and sometimes it may be because it is the sound of an artist’s true potential being realised. The second album from Jerome Alexander, AKA Message to Bears, is all three.
I remember hearing ‘Mountains’ way, way back in the distant times of June 2010 and being transported to somewhere only the most special pieces of music can take me. Fragile, yearning and self-reflective all in one, the song, in my mind, remains stunning, even more so, perhaps, now that eighteen months have elapsed and I’ve had the opportunity to hear it in album context. At the time, I thought Alexander couldn’t possibly produce anything quite as wonderful as a follow-up.
That was then. This is now.
‘Folding Leaves’ has taken my expectations and completely destroyed them. I don’t want to call this album ‘perfect’, because that is a hell of a tag and only applies to about five albums I can think of off hand, but damn it, this comes close, and has just set the bar for basically everything else in 2012, and especially so in post-rock and all related genres. Alexander’s music takes influence from post-rock, folk and ambient music, fusing them all together into something that is almost transcendent in nature. It sounds like I’m chucking out superlatives for the sake of it, but, good as it was, his debut ‘Departures’ utterly pales in comparison.
From the gentle, xylophone-led introduction to ‘Everything Was Covered in Snow’ to the euphoric coda that closes ‘Daylight Goodbye’, one of the songs on which Alexander employs vocals – creating multi-tracked vocal choirs that add an extra dimension to the already-rather-layered instrumentals – ‘Folding Leaves’ is the sort of album one can lose themselves in, a soothing balm to counteract stress and tension. It also helps that it is profoundly uplifting; even the minor-key songs are filled with hope.
I don’t want to throw out comparisons too easily, either, but listening to this album reminds me of the time when The Antlers consisted of just Peter Silberman, and he wrote ‘In the Attic of the Universe’. ‘Folding Leaves’ is also a ‘solo’ album, as it were, but is so textured and expertly crafted (case in point: the almost Sigur Rós-like ending of ‘Unleft’) that it’s hard to believe that it was created by just one man. Strings, guitar, electronic beats, piano, and of course, Alexander’s voice, all combine to produce something that shows him truly coming into his own as an artist.
There are just enough layers present on this album – literal and figurative. In the hands of most anyone else, the fragile beauty that lies at the heart of this album would be pushed to extremes, but what makes Message to Bears’s second album as amazing as it is, is that it is a case of ‘all this and nothing more’. Its payoffs aren’t explosions of sound; they are small things thrown into the mix that seem to make all the difference. There is an absolute ton of space on this record, space that is filled with only the necessary ingredients – and the result, regardless of how long it was in the making – is something to be treasured.
Self-released on January 18th 2012; pre-order on his Bandcamp.
Posted by Gareth O’Malley
