Whenever I would go to John Diliberto’s Echoes website or listen to his podcast, I always know my ears would perk up to see what new bands and artist that he would have on his show. Whether its Jeff Grienke, Brigitte Bardini, David Arkenstone, Kaleida, Dave Bessell, or Lumenette, he always has these incredible new sounds that would pique my interest.
Now, another duo that has landed on my lap is an Austin-based duo, a husband-and-wife team; Aeseaes. The duo considers Travis Chapman and Allie Eissler, who had first met in the University of Texas back in 2013. Chapman had played with Balmorhea and plays an upright bass, Eissler is a singer-songwriter and they always wanted to write their own arrangements, walking into the parallel universes of the dream-pop genre.
According to Dilberto’s review, the couple started working on their sound on their Twitch platform 10 years ago. Which they still do, every week. The name for their live internet shows; ACS (A Couple Streaming). With their new album Opia, you can tell the duo have channeled their inner sense of finding your own true self and being truthful and honest with the music they’ve unfolded for 2025 so far.
The ominous introduction with a haunting piano, guitar, hand-clapping, and percussion work behind ‘Finifugal’, is a message that someone is on the brink of a nervous breakdown that plays through the endings they try to avoid and shunning it down to be free from all of the chaos they’re occurring. ‘Humdrum’ brings to mind the Heathen-era of David Bowie’s 2002 album as Allie visions herself the vocal arrangements between North Sea Radio Orchestra’s Sharron Fortnam and Alison Goldfrapp into the fold.
There’s a mid-paced pattern that sends you deeper into the darker forest in the textures before settling down in the folky aspects with its Acid orientations behind the ‘White Noise’ that’s crawling towards you which brings to mind Trees’ The Garden of Jane Delawney, iamthemorning’s Marjana Semkina, and Tori Amos while the harp sets up the hallucinations to make you feel if someone’s closing in on the characterizations being trapped in the same nightmares on ‘Voice’.
I wouldn’t compare Allie’s voice to Stevie Nicks, because that would be too much of a cop-out, but once she transforms into her post-punk, new wave outfit which takes place in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s scenario, she tackles the eerie quietness, and struggles that are unfolding behind ‘Desire’ with a little help from Chapman’s bass which sets up a clock-ticking scenario of someone having a nervous breakdown.
But its ‘Fire Escape’ where Allie places herself into Violent Femmes territory where she had written this song as a continuation to ‘Color me Once’ from the 1994 soundtrack The Crow starring the late, great Brandon Lee as Eric Draven. Allie and Chapman have done their research when it comes to making amazing music together.
And also adding in Brian Eno alumni Leo Abrahams on guitar and Cross Record drummer Dan Duszynski, they all give it all their might to bring Opia to life. ‘Horror Vacui’ returns back to the Acid Folk genre with its rain-drop experimentation’s and taking us into a mental asylum where we witness a super-heroine who was once the savior of a city, has now lost control of everything and descending into a downward spiral of not being sane.
The closing track ‘Waiting’ is an electronic lullaby with this cliffhanger motif, not knowing what will happen next. It does have a stretch to the North Sea Radio Orchestra’s arrangements from the I a Moon sessions the duo have tackled where they’re on the mountain top, giving us an insight that the adventure has only just begun.
