In contrast to her previous musical foray, With Up So Floating, Reverieme (or Louise Connell as she’s known when not in a dream sequence) has created a collection of simple, elegant songs to set your heart aflutter.
As WUPF stated its intention with higher production value and an unmistakable immediacy, new EP Or Else The Light somehow drifts into the room like a welcome friend who happens to bear a pleasing resemblance to 2010 album Melodies, but one who has grown up, learned a few things and now firmly knows their emotional self.
First track ‘Venus’ is a soaring opener and sets the tone by showcasing the wonderful laid back string play present within this seven track EP.
Nothing normally beats the sound of a beautifully strummed ukulele, yet while listening to ‘Plankton’ the listener can’t help but be arrested by the expression in Connell’s voice, which is a heart wrenching juxtaposition of defeat and hope.
Her declaration that the song’s afflatus is “…so much like a planktonic woman” is a devastating indictment aimed to show how passivity can be as damaging as jealousy and similar emotions within any relationship.
The sea and its current is a common trope employed by Reverieme, and with a knowing dash of science here and there, Connell has written one of her greatest pieces in ‘Golem’.
It’s a song in which an emotional tide rolls in leaving the listener rapt in the singers devastating ability to not only construct great work, but a song so conscious in its effort to finger point human frailty and the universality of sorrow that you know she’s felt the same pain you have.
‘Nocturnal Baby’ again portrays, if you needed further illustration, the unavoidability of loneliness and anguish when someone you truly loved is no longer there.
The truth inherent in the refrain “nothing reminds you of time like a clock in the night” completely nails the state of the human condition during isolation and those nights in which time draws out like a long knife.
Buy this EP; you need this EP; it is quite simply a wonderful and devastating depiction of the frequency and commonality of love and loss.
Words: David McPhee
Rave Child 