Espers - III

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4...according to our Phil on Fri 23 Oct, 2009.

Espers release their third album proper out this week on Wichita. I have a bit of a soft spot for Espers... Just cos their first album is an acid folk classic and if you've slightly into the whole psych thing you need that album in your life. Subsequent releases haven't impressed me as much mainly cos I'm not as keen on the production... It all sounds cleaner and less hazy and the new album is guilty of that as well. The songs are good though and you can hear some shiny diamonds kicking around in there. 'That Which Darkly Arrives' is a particularly fine song with it's swirly guitars and it's dreamy vocals does it for me. Though if I'm totally honest it's well hippy this album... Well all of them are and me liking their 1st album so much must mean I'm some sort of hippy. At this juncture I'd like to say 'way out'. I like about half of this Espers III shiny CD which isn't too bad for me!

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TRACKLISTING:
01.               I Can't See Clear
02.              The Road of Golden Dust
03.              Caroline
04.              The Pearl
05.               That Which Darkly Thrives
06.              Sightings
07.              Meridian
08.              Another Moon Song
09.              Colony
10.              Trollslända

Recorded over the Winter and Spring of 2009, Espers III was intended to be an aural tonic to the layered fullness of the band's second offering. The idea was to record as little as possible in the hope of achieving a stronger, more oxygenated sonic presence. Where II was meant to be almost claustrophobic in its density and darkness, III was envisioned as being a lighter affair; less heavy and more nuanced. The band attempted to create something that would be perhaps cheery at times, though that mark may have been missed. As more time passed in the recording process, a growing dementia within both song and lyrics occurred, such that even the lightest of fare from III seems oddly unwholesome at heart.
As with past releases, III was recorded with the LP in mind. The album is intended to work as a whole and has been organized to best play as two equally weighted sides. Recorded entirely to analogue tape, the album was then also mixed to tape – a factor that became all the more important as an emphasis on underplaying increased. When more space is created in a recording the less sterile that space becomes.
The concept of space flowed through from the recording process into the song writing and lyrics. Without dominating the meaning, each of these songs in some way touch upon "new space," whether by envisioning it, finding it, claiming it, or colonizing it. In fact, the album almost took on the very name, 'Colony', due to a sub-textual thought process that touched upon Herzog's Aguirre, Heart of Darkness, cult groups, deep Amazonian treks, religious nation building, ritualistic drug ceremonies, etc.
Taking drugs to take canoe trips to take drugs on.
This album's shift in cover aesthetic mirrors the band's themes and their desire to reach beyond what might be expected of an Espers album. Gone is the folk art two-dimensionality so skilfully provided by the band's guitarist Brooke Sietinsons. Welcome to the three-dimensionality and metaphoric imagery of the new Espers aesthetic.

Now officially a five piece, Espers III features bass by Greg Weeks, this being the only structural change from previous efforts. Espers II was the last full length album recorded in Greg's Hexham Head studio. Weeks and the studio have moved from city locale to pastoral backdrop, a relocation that will no doubt factor into the sonics of future Espers endeavours.