#threads;echo mcdowell

[gypsybelladonna]

connection: love interest -- early dating stage...

muse: Echo Mcdowell x Ivy Mckenna

@legendaryl0stpieces

"You have no idea how happy I am to see you!" Echo's voice came from down the hallway, as she barreled towards Ivy to wrap arms around her and squeeze her tightly. It had been over a month since she'd been able to see her last; they'd been dating for four months already and it was hard to believe it had only been four months. Though that little bit over a month of not being able to see her because she'd had to go take care of family matters with her father and siblings.

They had needed her there for some decisions that involved her and it took her quite a while before she could get back to her. Echo was excited to see her again, nuzzling her nose into her neck and pressing a kiss to it, before pulling her head up to look at her. "Hi there." she said softly, barely a whisper as she leaned her forehead against hers for a moment before lifting her forehead to look at her for a moment with a small smile.

[thepitglasgow]

MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA - A BLACK MILE TO THE SURFACE

MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA HERALD IN A NEW ERA AND JUSTIFY THEIR GOOD NAME WITH A COMPLEX AND STUNNINGLY VISCERAL LOOK INTO PARENTHOOD AND RELIGION.   

Andy Hull is the son of a pastor — he’s also now a father himself. In amongst sub-narratives of self-destruction, repetition and the elusive religion which haunts his art like a spectre, A Black Mile To The Surface is an album about family. More so, about parenthood. 

Opening track, The Maze, is a not so subtle mission statement for anyone aware of Hull’s young daughter’s name. Mayzie is ever present in the steady heartbeat of bassy piano and kick drum; the reverence Hull has for her symbolised in his church-like backing choir. Worship and fatherhood are inextricably linked, and though it’s initially presented in a positive light, their connection is far more profound. 

In the context of these people as characters at least, the relationship between Mayzie’s parents’ is troubled. Refracted through heart attacks and the collapse of a gold mine both The Gold and The Moth tackle helplessness in the face of a failing bond: ‘You don’t open your eyes for a while / you just breathe that moment down’. One approaches with warm, sloping guitar and stark choruses; the other in a discordant crescendo of voices and oppressive background mutters. The tension they build leading into one of the record’s absolute standouts is palpable. 

Lead, SD is the inevitable explosion, part one of a narrative surrounding a mass-murder suicide in a grocery.. A razor sharp riff, bursts of momentum and the cold silence in between to draw focus to Hull’s meticulously controlled voice.     MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA are a band well-tethered to their roots in the deep south, and the stagnation of their home is just as much a part of the story as anything: every year the same, the snow, the mental break, ‘and it’s been that way for eternity’. Hull asks over and over for his girlfriend’s hand in marriage, he repents and repeats his sins and nothing ever changes. Doomed to repeat his father’s mistakes. 

The rest of the tale is fractured despite its seamless transitions, split up by a sweet, folky love song and a separate self-inflicted car crash. The Alien is soft and distant, non-judgemental even as its protagonist hurts those around him in his turmoil. Echo carries Hulls’ vocals up and over lead guitarist Robert McDowell’s easy plucking, and the building layers give it an otherworldly quality which carries through the rest of the record.  

When we do finally return to The Grocery it’s from the shooters perspective, and then that of a pregnant woman’s in The Wolf as she’s caught in the crossfire. The climax of the narrative centerpiece is almost exultant in its certainty as cymbals crash and the final words, ‘this is the only way’, ring out into nothing. Determination in the pounding of The Wolf’s drums. 

Each account is discrete on the surface — but all are connected by the same threads of self-destruction; of collateral damage; the tie between religion, birth and death. It’s a heavy selection of themes, skillfully and personally considered by a man come to terms with his new place in life.    

And come to terms he has, for all the suffering A Black Mile To The Surface explores, it ends in two more love songs. The Parts, a vulnerable solo guitar track that follows the growth of his relationship with his wife, and The Silence. The record comes to a close with all the paternal feeling an indie band have to offer. Escalating, moving, vast. 

‘There is nothing I’ve got when I die that I keep’ submits Hull in The Maze, cries again in The Wolf, but he amends it now: ‘There is nothing you keep / there is only your reflection’. Regardless of ancestral curse or ‘darkness and agony’, he vows to end the repetition that haunts him. And in doing so, a new era begins.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

[gypsybelladonna]

tag drop for echo mcdowell