It’s been a few years since we’ve heard from Erica Anderson and Ezra Buchla and their noise-folk outfit Gowns. We have to go back to 2006 for the last release, the shamefully underrated Red State. Three years is like three dog years, which is like 49 years in internet time. Think of all the memes which have come and gone in that time and think of all the buzz bands who have suffered a similar forgotten fate.
Recorded live for Southern Latitudes, an avant version of the Peel Sessions at the Crass studios in London, “Dog,” finds Anderson and Buchla mining and refining those narcotic visions which were so prevalent on Red State. Both fragile and agitated, comforting and foreboding, the way Anderson speaks, she could be recounting a cherished childhood memory, predicting the end of days, or both at the same time. Similarly, the music swirls in a shifting haze with an old cranky, violin and wandering bits of guitar moving in and around Anderson’s voice, lending even more shiftiness to the wavering memories of those dogs. They never bark, and they never bite, but there’s a lingering feeling as the song fades out that the next time this story is told the ending could be the end of everything.
MP3: Gowns – Dog
