By: Martyn Coppack
Eternal Tapestry | website | facebook |
Released on February 24, 2015 via Thrill Jockey
Eternal Tapestry have been a band who have, over the course of their career, chiselled out some of the most downright strange and psychedelic albums this side of Brainticket. It comes as no surprise then, to find out that their latest offering Wild Strawberries is no less mind-bendingly deranged.
A sprawling double album recorded in the woods of Oregon where the band took up digs for the duration, the sound of nature invades everything here from the song titles named after the fauna surrounding them, to the ethereal air that surrounds the music. More of a sound-scape than a bunch of songs, it’s something you have to give time to. Once you do though, you are in for one beautiful trip…and that’s without the drugs.
It’s always difficult to review an album like this. With no firm songs as such you have to evoke the mood of the album and so to give some sort of indication we may as well leave a bunch of words here for you to peruse. If you click with these words then you will click with this album, if you don’t then you may be in trouble. What is intriguing though is that for all the weirdness going on Wild Strawberries is, in essence, a highly accessible album. It’s as if Eternal Tapestry have tapped into some inner consciousness in in us all and turned it into sound. Yes, that sounds like some old hippy ideal but there’s a lot to be said for getting back to nature.
So what are these words then? Here are a few…languid, stretched out, organic, Floydian, guitars, drone, organ, naturalistic, spaced…you get the picture? You can add beauty, serenity, tranquility and also a higher plain here although be aware that we are certainly not in World Music territory. This album is supremely psychedelic and can have a strange effect on your mind.
It’s a long album but various parts creep up on you when you least expect it, the one stand out is the trickling guitar throughout that can be picked at one point before soaring to the heights at others. It never feels forced though and one can imagine the band sprawled out in front of the camp fire just jamming out these moments without a care in the world. It is this carefree attitude that makes this such an open listen and you’ll be hard pushed to find much that is more beautiful this year.
