Marriages

Marriages — Kitsune
marriagesband.com
Sargent House

Another amazing album from Sargent House?  Why would I even doubt it. Marriages will deliver an intense and heavy experience to the listener.  It clocks at under 30 minutes and will leave you wanting more.  Much more.  I really like how Alarm puts it:

“One might compare the sound to PJ Harvey teaming up with Tool in 1995 to cover Mazzy Star — but you should skip comparison entirely, as Marriages isn’t quite like anything else”.

Have you heard what a Japanese fox sounds like?

Neither have I, but this new EP from prog trip outfit Marriages might just possess as many magical qualities as our eastern brethren associate with this fantastic little animal.

Kitsune is the debut record from Emma Ruth Rundle, Greg Burns and David Clifford; three fifths of pioneering noisesmiths Red Sparowes and all of their new side project Marriages.

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Marriages: Kitsuné (Sargent House)

Though their union is new, the members of Marriages are veterans of post-rock experimentation, and their self-titled debut challenges the very notion of the sub-genre.

Guitarist/vocalist Emma Ruth Rundle, bassist Greg Burns, and drummer Dave Clifford all spend time in Red Sparowes, a band that has pushed the boundaries of the loud-soft dynamic with an innovative use of pedal-steel guitar and subtle vocal textures. But Marriages is markedly different, built around Rundle’s intoxicating vocals and unconventional guitar style.

Rundle’s vocals — breathy and, at times, ghostly — benefit from a bit of traditional post-rock atmospherics. But they’re also joined by a subtle, deep effect, allowing her to harmonize with a nearly inaudible lower octave. One might compare the sound to PJ Harvey teaming up with Tool in 1995 to cover Mazzy Star — butyou should skip comparison entirely, as Marriages isn’t quite like anything else.

- John Taylor

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Listening to Marriages debut album Kitsune is an almost spiritual experience. I don’t mean that listening to the album is going to cause you to find God or anything like that but it will take you to another place with its ghostly musings. The songs here are beautifully epic and will haunt your soul. The credit there goes to singer/guitarist Emma Ruth Rundle whose voice and guitar textures are the soul of Marriages.

The songs released up until  now don’t do Kitsune justice. It’s not that the songs aren’t good, because they’re beyond that, but within the realm of Kitsune and the flow they create with the rest of the album they’re perfection. “Ten Tiny Fingers” was incredible on its own but hearing the synth intro at the end of “Body of Shade” which goes directly into “Ten…” will give you goosebumps.

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Click above to hear the Spinner full album stream of Kitsune by Marriages out today, May 1st on Sargent House. Order the CD or Vinyl, or buy on Bandcamp or Itunes 

I guess you could call this an EP:  Six tracks, all of which sort of melt into the other, a slow and lush mode and quiet howl of guitar notes afloat and occupying every available nook of audible background.  Marriages, a trio comprised of Red Sparowes members Emma Ruth Rundle (vocals/guitar), Greg Burns (bass/synth) and David Clifford (drums), approach their new release, Kitsune, with grace and tone, air and drama, its six songs a cohesive array of sounds that are both haunting and captivating.  Its intro alone, the opening notes of the ghostly Ride In My Place, induces shivers.

It was three or four listens before I realized that Ride In My Place and the following song, Body Of Shade, weren’t two parts of the same track, their transition seamless, their pairing wonderfully sequenced.  For this reason alone, the album’s continuity is as important as the music Marriages performs. Kitsune is to be considered for the duration of its six-song length as opposed to one or two songs at a time.  To listen any other way would shortchange the work, the trio’s assembly of sharp percussion and atmospheric melody as logically configured and essential to the make-up as words are to a properly written or formed sentence.

Having said that, the rewarding Ride In My Place and tom-thumping epic, Ten Tiny Fingers, provide the album its standouts.  The instrumental Pelt acts as precursor and anticipation builder to the guitar track, White Shape, Kitsune’s obligatory rock fist payoff opportunity before the album settles via its closing track, Part The Dark Again.  Vocally somber, its riffs generating sorrowful, amplified repetition,Kitsune’s last dose of loud fades into a mass of impassioned reverb.  It’s here you realize the album’s true flaw:  It’s too fucking short. -  Sean Caldwell

Given that all of their members work together in the similar-sounding post-rock outfit Red Sparowes, it’s hard to view Marriages as a side project, let alone a separate band altogether. The guitars are still swirling and atmospheric; the structures still dream-like and meandering. It’s almost like the Boxcar Racer of post-rock bands. But there are two big differences on new release Kitsune that divide the groups: Marriages write more condensed, focused tunes, and they actually use vocals. While minor differences, they’re enough to justify Kitsune, although the high quality certainly helps.

Of course, there’s a certain point where you have to stop questioning Marriages’ existence and just roll with the music anyway. This EP strikes the right balance between cavernous, monster rock and warm, insular shoegaze. Songs like “Body of Shade” ebb and flow, enveloping the listener in noise. Music of this hazy variety seems tailor-made for forming one 26-minute-long dream, but it helps that the band links the songs together to form a chain.

Striking a balance between Mogwai’s muscle and Eisley’s tunefulness, Marriages knocked out six tracks here, and there isn’t a single dud among them. Granted, it helps if one is already down with this kind of mood music, but even as just background listening, Kitsune deserves a spin or two. Still, though, giving the record more attention is rewarding, yielding a lush collection of tunes that can be alternately ethereal and punishing, often within the confines of one track, as the three-minute “Pelt” demonstrates. Either way, Kitsune is a winner.

3 QUESTIONS

ONE: Could you tell us about your upcoming album Kitsune and what it was like making it?
Emma Ruth Rundle: The theme that we named the record after was just…It went along with the artwork. We purchased these Japanese Oni masks, and one of the masks was ‘kitsune’ which is the possession of the fox spirit, and so we sort of did the artwork around that. We used that whole idea to tie things together.

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It’s the return of American label Sargent House‘s podcast presented by 2XM’s Niahm Hegarty. This second edition features an interview of Marfred Rodriguez Lopez from Zechs Marquise, talking about his youth living around At The Drive-In and opening for their Texas reunion gigs. There’s also an interview of Marriages, a new band from Red Sparowes members Greg Burns, Emma Ruth Rundle, Dave Clifford (starts around 36:10 in) and featuring music from Sargent House’s roster of bands that are all touring in Europe this year, And So I Watch You From Afar, Chelsea Wolfe, Big Sir, Tera Melos, Deafheaven and Russian Circles.