Esben and the Witch are a fascinating band, quite unlike any other. They are also something of a mass of contradictions. They are a Brighton band in origin, who now live in Berlin and are sometimes assumed to be German as a result. They quite consciously defy genre categorisation. They are a band with a woman at its very heart, but named after a horrifically sexist Danish fairy story. Their music is complex, without the self indulgence of some Prog Rock. It is dark and even sinister, being often inspired by unsettling folk tales, yet it is seldom depressing. It is gothic, but not Goth; spiritual, but not religious; thoughtful and thought provoking, but neither preachy nor presumptuous. They have described themselves as ‘nightmare pop’ and they certainly can be, but there is also a great deal in their music that is beautiful.
With six studio albums, a glorious live album and a series of EP’s to their credit EATW are veterans now, having existed since 2008 and, impressively, they still have the same line-up they started with: Rachel Davies, on Bass and vocals; Daniel Copeman on Drums and Thomas Fisher on Guitar. Yet they remain fresh and original. Their new album, ‘Nowhere‘, which only came out shortly before the Soup Kitchen gig, is a superb case in point, and a worthy successor to their 2016 masterpiece ‘Older Terrors‘.
The gig saw the band on great form, with a performance gripping enough to make the hairs at the back of the neck stand up. They were also helped by good sound engineering, for once. Fisher’s dissonant and dystopian guitar playing is a major part of the band’s overall instrumental sound and even on records it is deservedly set well to the fore in the mix. Live, however, there were occasions when it was perhaps mixed just a tad too high against Davies’ bass, and there were even times during the louder guitar passages when her vocals also became a little bit swamped. Nevertheless, these were few and far between, and the dark brooding quality of the music still came over successfully, aided by a well matched light show, which majored on eerie blue back-lighting.
As we commented in a recent article about US band, ‘Strange Relations‘, there are times when a beautiful, angelic voice can actually make the impact of a song more, rather than less unsettling, and this is something that Rachel Davies – like Strange Relations’ Casey Sowa – understands well. She has a wonderfully pure, wistful voice which really is more effective in singing about some of the darker themes covered in EATW’s songs than a harsher tone would be.
A good example is ‘Dull Gret‘ off ‘Nowhere’, which is based on another folk tale, this time a Flemish story about the leader of an army of women who invade Hell. Popular depiction’s, such as Bruegel’s famous 1563 oil painting of the story, and her popular name of Mad Meg, might suggest a grating or even cackling, voice. But Davies is almost dreamy at times. She does, though, have a greater dynamic range than Sowa, which allows her to throttle up rather further to become almost imperious on occasions. Even so, she never quite looses that purity of tone. This is an impressive enough feat on record, where the artist has full control of the process, but she also managed to resist the temptation to shout live, even when her voice was being left too far down in the mix, and so managed to preserve the same quality on stage. Likewise, Davies’ vocal range extends deeper than Sowa’s, as in the song ‘The Unspoiled‘, and this can also add to the ominous atmosphere. Interestingly, although the two bands are very different, there is another parallel in that Fisher’s often shredding guitar style can sometimes resemble that of ‘Strange Relations’ long-time (if now ex) guitarist Nate Hart-Andersen.
The ‘Soup Kitchen’ set included most of the new album, along with some welcome dips into the back catalogue. The latter included a number of tracks from ‘Older Terrors’ and it was gratifying to hear my own personal favourite live – the hauntingly beautiful ‘Sylvan‘. EATW do not tend to be a band where songs get a cheer of recognition from the audience as they start. Indeed, they specialise in longer pieces with slow burn introductions, which are not always instantly recognisable even to dedicated fans. Nor does the audience sing along with the lyrics very much. Instead, they more resemble a classical audience in behaviour – listening spellbound. And understandably so. This is a cerebral band who appeal to the intellect as much as the hind brain. You can still dance to them if the mood takes you, but you think while you are doing it. It is a wonderful combination. Indeed, given the band’s love of tales of magic and mythology, ‘spellbound’ seems a particularly apt term.
Support acts often appear to be picked almost at random and can create something of a jarring mix. On occasions, however, the choice is inspired and the two (or more) acts compliment each other perfectly to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. We recently reviewed one such example: ‘The Japanese House’ supported by ‘Art School Girlfriend’ at the Gorilla. and ‘A-Sun Amissa’ were, likewise, an ideal support for EATW.
They are the vision of solo artist Richard Knox and although they often play as a full band, this tends to be a group of collaborators with a somewhat floating membership, rather than a fixed outfit. At the ‘Soup Kitchen’ they played as a two piece, with Knox himself on guitar, and his wife Claire on bass and clarinet. They describe their genre, amongst other things, as ‘Neo-Classical’ and certainly there is much of the classical in its structure, even if not in its sound. Their other self description as ‘Ambient’ is also valid, although they are very far from the musical wallpaper that this term can sometimes imply.
As with most classical, their music comes as wholly instrumental ‘pieces’, not as songs. There are no lyrics or singing of any kind. There were no title announcements or stage banter. Indeed neither band member even had a microphone. Yet no absence is felt, just as it is not with other instrumental bands, such as ‘Tangerine Dream‘. As with EATW themselves, their appeal is as much cerebral and spiritual as it is to the dance impulse, and none the worse for that. They also take an experimental approach to their playing styles, both musicians, for example, playing guitar and bass with violin bows on occasions. The result was rather impressive and does produce a different sound to other guitar bowing techniques, such as using an EBow, or a glissando bar.
The band have a new album out (their fourth) called ‘Ceremonies in the Stillness‘, which is beautifully recorded to real hi-fi quality and very well worth a listen. We bought the physical CD version from the merch stall on the night, and it has now had multiple playings, especially of the glorious track ‘No perception of light‘. As an added bonus, it also comes with download codes for the MP3 version, along with a taster selection of other material from the same record company (Gizeh Records). One small quibble, though: be warned that there is no CD case as such, and no spine lettering to help you identify the disc on a shelf. Instead it comes in light card packaging that seems almost purpose designed to get torn and fall apart almost at once and yet be impossible to adapt to a conventional jewel case. This is a shame, because it might put buyers off actually playing what is a very good record and it would have been such an easy problem to avoid.
In short, this was a great evening of beautiful, thought provoking music, by two superb and well matched bands. Esben and the Witch have long been personal favourites of ours and anything new from them can pretty much be guaranteed to be great. ‘A-Sun Amissa’ were new to us but we will be very interested to hear more from them in future.
Hera Says.
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Hera says I should be the star now 