If you’ve been keeping up you’ll have noticed that I’ve developed quite a thing about Since Torino, so the release of this EP is a whole bunch of joy. So let’s get straight into the music.
The EP opens with ‘portee, 1992’; a track that can’t be put into any straightforward musical genre; and this in itself is something to be loved, I guess you might say that it has elements of Emo, but then again it equally has elements of Jazz. Somehow it feels close to Radiohead, except it’s not as dense sounding as that comparison might give the impression.
It’s slow, achingly beautifully slow. There’s a growling guitar but it’s way back in the mix. There’s a bittersweet sounding guitar that plays over this. And then there’s inventive sparse as you want drums that weave through this. But there is also a vocal that I can only describe as a drawling whisper that sings words you have to listen to very very closely to hear’ words that even you don’t hear them well to get what the song is about have an intense emotional impact on you. One is aware that something of great significance must have happened in the town of Portree in 1992, and whatever that was is deeply deeply personal. To me it’s a song about loss. And I feel this through the music as much as the vocal.
And yes, if you have to know the song does build to something but it isn’t the guitar fest you might assume. It’s actually a horn, And this, unexpectedly as it may be, is just so right it reaches in and twists your heartstrings. No-one would be upset it you shed a tear ar this point in the song. I’m not afraid to admit I did.
Somehow ‘checking up’ builds on or even takes a variant of ‘portee, 1992’ in its sound but it has its own sonic thing. It takes that aching beautiful slow feel but it layers on both a chiming guitar and an intensively thoughtful guitar. It’s all done so slowly and carefully that the addition of snatches of voices and sounds is an unsurprising surprise. What I mean by this is that they should be a surprise but somehow they aren’t; it all just feels absolutely right.
The song, unless I’ve got it entirely wrong, appears to be about meeting up with a friend after not seeing them for a while. What I’ve not been able to work out is whether this is an old love or old friend; not that this matters if I’m honest. And it’s important to mention that it tells this story in music as well as words.
Next up is ‘sojourn’. Now the short song is sometimes a risk, a minefield if you will. But here in 60 seconds Since Torino manage wonderfully to tell us both a story and take us on a haunting musical journey. It’s both intensely beautiful and intense emotionally. Layers of frankly beautiful sounds intertwine and overlay
‘emily plays suzanne (at the half moon inn)’ takes a surprising turn into something that certainly has something of the post-punk about it. To my admittedly older ears I hear echoes of Bauhaus. Skittering sounds skitter, a weirdly bent guitar adds to the dark feel. And then there is the end; a whirring sound followed by a drop into chaos.
It is, unsurprisingly, about going to see somebody play and they play the song ‘Suzanne’. And again the band manage to tell us a story in words and music in just a few seconds more than a minute.
To go back to what I said at the start of my thoughts on ‘sojourn’. The inclusion of two short pieces could be seen as risky. That is unless they do enough to tell what they needed to tell. And these two musical tone poems do that. I call them tone poems because they are not songs in the conventional sense. And the thing is that in their shortness they paint a picture, they tell a story. And they are so intense musically that you don’t need more.
So, sometimes you think you get a band, you think you have a handle on their sound, And then they go and do something that makes you rethink what you thought. ‘transatlantic flight song’ is that song.
It still has that Since Torino feel; thoughtful and intensely personal, and carefully crafted and put together.It’s just that this song is built around retro sounding synths It’s, to coin a phrase, a retro synth ballad. And when I say ballad I mean that in the sense of it being a story narrated.It sounds like vintage electronica. It’s moody, somewhat dark and intensely atmospheric. It has words that make you want to listen again and again until you get them and the\ story they tell,
So while this song has me rethinking what I’d previously assumed about the band, somehow I always knew they would do that at some stage. And I love it when a band does that; I am not the type of person who demands a band always ‘sound’ the same, I just want their music to be recognisably them, and this is recognisably them.
The EP, sadly, closes with ‘alive’; a song that somehow has something of the Americana, an element of Emo. And in contrast to its title, this is a slow song. And yet, strangely, a slow song that you could imagine being more uptempo, or at some point becoming more uptempo.
You get layers of guitars, different sounding guitars, all subtlety put together. Touches of sounds that have you rewinding to catch again. Sparse drumming that sets the backbone. And it’s wonderful. Within the musical framework there are sounds that bring a lump to your throat and make your heart lurch.
And as it gradually comes to its end you are left feeling bereft, wanting that achingly beautiful song to last longer, or perhaps forever.
Summing up this EP is going to be difficult for me to do without gushing. So let’s start with some statements (of the obvious, perhaps). This is a collection of songs that tell stories in both their words and music. The words are thoughtful, compelling and full of meaning. The music is played with obvious skill. And yet for all of their obvious skill the music is about feel, atmosphere and emotion; not about showing off.
Look, I can’t stop myself. The individual songs, and the EP as a whole, have a kind of understated beauty; it’s the subtleties that make the feelings that reach in and twist your soul. What I love about Since Torino is that their music seems to come from everywhere and equally is seemingly uninfluenced by anything. And I love how they put their songs together; gorgeously. This is, if you hadn’t already realised, achingly beautiful music for the heart and soul.
