Jessica Bailiff And Annelies Monsere

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4...according to our Mingus on Thu 10 Apr, 2008.

Annelies Monsere & Jessica Bailiff: S/T EP (Morc) Highly limited (310) four track EP on this Belgian label. Opens up with a bowed strings and grey sky droney instrumental. 'Let Me Breathe' the opening vocal track is breathy a cappella intro-ed number that continues the strings/drone/guitar axis that the ethereal vocals are balanced on. In fact, in places the instrumentation is so sparse I'm wondering what's holding this EP together, except the will and force of the voices crying out on these haunting passages. A thing of fragile beauty, this Ep will appeal to fans of Low, some of the more acoustic efforts on the Kranky label and those that like highly emotional soul music.

About Jessica Bailiff and Annelies Monseré:
Toledo-based Jessica Bailiff debuted in 1998 with the album Even in silence on Kranky. A very remarkable debut, mixing drones and slow folksongs, immediately made her one of the best-received artists on the label.
Throughout the years, her music got more stripped down, with ‘feels like home’ from 2006 being the latest regular full length. In 2007, morc records put out a compilation of rarities and unreleased material from 1998-2003. She toured the US and Europe, and collaborated with artists as diverse as Low, Rivulets, Flying Saucer Attack (resulting in a record as ‘clear horizon’) and Saturday looks good to me.
Annelies Monseré is a multi-instrumentalist from Gent, Belgium. Her debut record came out in 2005 on Bluesanct records. During a four year stay in the Netherlands, she toured Europe and the US and played on festivals like Tanned Tin and Primaverasound, leading to high expectations for her second record, due for release later in 2008.

Annelies and Jessica met back in 2002, during Jessica’s first European tour. They’ve been frequently doing shows together since 2005. On stage they often played on each others sets, but recording together didn’t happen until they did a duo-tour in October 2007. On this occasion, they totally reworked two rare tracks of Jessica, and two yet unreleased songs by Annelies.
Although it’s just the two of them, this ep has a very built-up sound, which is reminiscent of Jessica’s earliest output and Annelies’ most recent live shows. Vocals, guitars and cello- and keyboard drones get a very prominent role on these recordings, which were made entirely in the analog domain.
The ep is limited to 310, and comes in a mini-lp jacket. All copies are hand-numbered and have handwritten linernotes by Annelies.

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