Storms (Lori Scacco + Eva Puyuelo Muns)

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4...according to our Brett on Thu 21 Oct, 2010.

Apparently Lori Scacco (ex of Seely) and Eva Puyuelo (of Savath & Savalas) met through mutual friend Guillermo Scott Herren (Prefuse 73). Together they do a lush and dreamy take on guitar folk that on the one hand sounds quite stripped down but on the other is obviously bolstered by electronic interventions and manipulations, such as the warping and reversing of both instruments and vocals. The reversing in particular is kind of making me think of this ace (if slightly pretentious) game called Braid which has this whole 'playing with time' element to it and hangs it all on an atmosphere that's somehow both bright and melancholic at the same time, which is how this album's sounding to me this first time through. I likes it, even though it made me run out of all my brackets in the first sentence.

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Storms are Lori Scacco and Eva Puyuelo. Lori Scacco was a founding member of Seely (Too Pure) and released her first solo recording, ‘Circles’, on Eastern Developments. Eva Puyuelo is a member of Savath & Savalas. They first met through mutual friend and collaborator Guillermo Scott Herren when Lori was asked to tour as part of the Savath & Savalas live band. Years later as Lori was writing new solo material and Eva was in New York recording with Savath & Savalas, she invited Eva to join her on one song for her new record which, at the time, was intended to be mostly instrumental. They soon discovered that they had a deep-rooted creative connection and a shared love of 70’s psych-folk one-offs. ‘Lay Your Sea Coat Aside’ is the result of five weeks spent sequestered in New York City, immersed in a wholly collaborative exchange. Inspired by Linda Perhacs, Extradition, Nico, and Elis Regina's most stripped down collaborations with Milton Nascimento, they poured over a number of guitar pieces Lori had amassed throughout the initial writing stages and developed an explorative practice that would define every instant of their work together. Lori crafted elastic instrumental narratives that served as a point of departure. Eva replied with strings of melodies and harmonies—and together they collaged their material, always writing and deconstructing as they went. They ended up with a series of wordless compositions—some dense with vocal harmonies and field recordings, some stripped bare of any accompaniments—that together formed an intimate, immersive sonic landscape. For the lyrical content they brought in Ann Stephenson, a New York poet whose evocative expeditions of language fit perfectly into their visceral musical ground. Each of the three components—vocal, instrumental, and lyrical—constantly folded into and informed the others, always remaining fluid and malleable. The resulting record achieves a tactile minimalism, manifested through texture of breath and voice, elemental acoustic resonance, and a celebration of the immediacy of place.

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