Much has been made about the fact that The Ecclesia, the group behind this impressive work of restraint and subtle beauty, are all quite young, so let’s get that out of the way first. When this album was released in 2006, the members of the trio were all under the age of 20. This is not just press-sheet fodder though – the youthfulness of its creators stands in surprising juxtaposition to the affective purity and the maturity of the compositions included here.
The album shares room in Arena Rock Records‘ catalog with such indie staples as Minus the Bear, Calla, and Superdrag, but inhabits headspace instead with those who fall in step with Loren Chasse, Hulk (whose recently reissued Silver Thread of Ghosts on Osaka is a kindred spirit to this release), or the Type Records, Resonant, and n5md cadre. These artists have for several years now blurred the lines between such outsider genres as New Age, folk, dub, and minimalist techno. Studio production techniques such as echo and delay, sample looping, processed synthesizers and beat programming walk hand in hand with found sound usage, field recordings, and strict reliance on honest, personal expression to formulate the artist’s place in not just the musical world, but in the greater community as well.
Environmental themes abound – almost the entire Jewelled Antler Collective output, Xela’s The Dead Sea and its close cousin, Last Days‘ Sea, are just a few of the hundreds resonating with an unmistakably natural, almost pagan influence. Indeed, communion with the elements is a central theme of the musical influences listed above – New Age and folk draw upon the powers of wood, wind, and water, as dub and techno live in metal and fire. It is not surprising to see the output of a highly cognizant, self-perpetuating movement such as this agilely weave such seemingly disparate ingredients together to form an alchemic blend of the living and the inorganic.
The Ecclesia set themselves up (in more than just name) within a similar church as Jewelled Antler centerpieces Thuja and the Blithe Sons, although admittedly in a separate denomination that is more reliant on creative translation and liberal expression than the strict interpretation of the found-sound folk tribes. The Arizona-based trio delve deeper into the usage of motif to convey their message, allowing even the darker moments to be pastoral, thus communicating for the trees, whereas Donaldson, Smith, Chasse, et al. tend to communicate as the trees instead.
This tone is set immediately from the opening of Birdsong over the Interior Castle, and is allowed to fully develop by the end of the album. Lulling waves of deep synthesizer and muted vocal layers wash over the calm, rhythmic clicks of “Open Mouth in Filtered Spaces,” which itself then washes slowly into “Naming the Animals (March)”. Here, just-barely mid-tempo drum programming babbles along beneath acoustic guitar and light woodwind. The few minutes of “Scenery” follow a pattern of chimes from the onset, building into a rhythmic churn that is best reserved for the few-inch deep eddying pools of mid-spring creeks before drifting away downstream.
ecclesia - naming the animals (march) (from birdsong over the interior castle, arena rock records, 2006)
The middle third of the album begins with the eleven-plus minute “Fatigue,” and like most of the songs on the album, is appropriately titled. Reminiscent of the late afternoon sun as seen through a canopy of early summer growth and the circumstances which surrounded just such a scene, the rhythm here is bare, unhurried and minimal, while synthesizers lightly twist in the breeze. Two-thirds of the way through this movement, the orchestrated environment succeeds in pulling the eyelids closed, and all of the motion for the last couple of minutes now sounds distant and muted, as if in a dreamstate.
ecclesia - fatigue (from (from birdsong over the interior castle, arena rock records, 2006)
Awaking in those same woods after dark, “From Sinew of the Lung” is comprised of whispered synths dancing with echoing guitar, and a handful of barely-audible insect-chirps providing direction upward to the huge night sky, where the soul tries to see further than the eyes. It is here that The Ecclesia shows a deft touch at delicate composition and why such words as “harmony” are not reserved for the musical world alone. I can’t help but think of the metaphysical music of the spheres, and am immediately taken back to late summer nights on the rural farm I grew up on, surrounded by thousands of small noises echoing together into a soothing din beneath an indigo canvas.
The final third of the album begins with the nine-minute “Waltz of Bethesda.” The Ecclesia do well here to refrain from overstaying their place in the darkness of “From Sinew of the Lung,” and instead allows the metallic waves of this sixth track to softly build until the signal decay creates a silver thread of presence six minutes in with striated, intermittent patterns forming on the horizon. The resulting surge is like seeing the sun rise on the underbelly of an incoming storm.
“Argument is Dance” comes out of this reigned chaos like a spring shower of raindrops on new petals. The drum codes move from front to back in the mix, and the view from the forest floor is one of contemplative calm. Ecclesia use the three and a half minutes of this song to demonstrate once again their ability to accurately title their works – the conflict of heaven and earth is resolved in the mesh of space between.
Finally, “Majik Fugue Real Estate” unfolds over eight minutes of shimmering atmosphere until the revered green of the old growth is restored and vibrant in the late morning sun of the album’s last three minutes. The hushed voices of “Open Mouth in Filtered Spaces” have now emerged as the calls of the wild forest spirits in the new morning. As we make our way to the other side of the woods and beyond, indeed, this final passage is a funeral march, albeit not one of loss or even death, but moreso of a passing away of a time and place, a moment of unique experience and spirituality.
