Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World is the new split release by Montague, Massachusetts’ Loone and Paper Bee, which you could either consider as two different bands or the same band with two faces, a kind of Jekyll and Hyde deal. Loone germinated from the solo work of Noel’le Longhaul (also of Mallory), who plays guitar and sings, with Nick Berger (bass/vocals) and Alyssa Kai (drums) in support. Paper Bee on the other hands finds Berger providing the guitar and vocals, with Kai on bass and Longhaul drumming. It’s best to consider them separate entities though, as the two halves of this split have their own distinctive, although very much complementary, sound. The closest comparison is fellow Mt. Home Arts band Act of Estimating As Worthless, both in the way quiet moments alternate with explosions of rowdy noise and, in particular, the way the songs don’t follow normal structures.
Thematically, the album bulges at the seams with passion and life, tales of souls floating around in a huge and amazing, if sometimes terrifying, universe. Fans of acts such as Small Wonder and Told Slant (who Loone are touring with soon) will find lots to like. The A-side belongs to Loone and the opening track, ‘All Pacing Horses’, begins with Berger and Longhaul’s voices in harmony, the instrumentation gloriously messy. Setting a trend for the rest of the release, the lyrics are a cosmic weave of natural and corporeal imagery, a love song on a different plane entirely (e.g. “skin is not an ocean made of edges and salt / a heart is not a meadow knitting water into frost / but I saw fields of you”).
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‘Ocatillo’ starts slow and heartfelt, Longhaul and Berger again sharing the vocals, before eventually whipping up into ramshackle noise. It’s one of those songs that turns several corners, continuously shifting and changing, with the lyrics again providing an organic and widescreen take on emotions like devotion and hope (“I wanna hold your hand stepping into the dark / I wanna feel the land that blooms in your heart / there are many roads we will be on alone / and its not true most don’t lead home / but I will take comfort and joy in knowing you’re out there too”).
“I am tired of this stupid human body,” they sing on ‘Offering’, my current favourite, which is part green and gloomy folk, part haunted pop. The track ends in a fun and noisy singalong end in which other voices join Longhaul’s in a moment of pure carefree catharsis.
“Every place I’ve ever lived is full of ghosts
every time I leave I make another one
every one I’ve ever loved it full of ghosts
every time they leave they make another one”
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‘Foam’ follows smoothly from the previous track, an almost eight-minute journey that seemingly enters several different rooms across its run-time. The lyrics are lovely, possessing an esoteric poetry almost akin to the prose of Blake Butler, telling the story of a little girl who’s tall like the world, of accidentally killing cacti and bonsai and fennel by relocating them from their homes.
The second side belongs to Paper Bee, who sound something like a cross between the thudding heart-on-sleeve pop of Eskimeaux and the strange and poetic folk of Joanna Newsom. Opening track, ‘The Choice to be Heard and Not Seen’, is a wonderful introduction. As someone who pays a lot of attention to lyrics, songs like this are simply a treat. I’m not going to apologise for pasting a lot of lyrics, I mean, just look at them:
“The most desolate stretches of highway surround me when I say I am home
Stretching out like the sorest of arms through the heat reaching to the sea grasping
Towards a life that was never mine
Towards my ghost in the thickest darkest parts where the moon-dappled snow takes the form of our hearts deepest fears”
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‘Lovers As Mirrors’ climbs and climbs, becoming an emotionally charged indie rock song, ending with crashing drums and wordless choral vocals, while ‘The End Parts I and II’ starts gentle but soon transforms into another gloriously noisy track, Berger’s vocals existing at the centre of the tumult of instruments. There are also lulls, consisting of just vocals and very quiet and subtle guitar, which feel loaded with weight after the volume and density of the track’s other sections.
“When it rains in this desert I’m home
clouds roll in I don’t feel as old
smell the asphalt I’m a kid again
it wasn’t better but still I miss it”
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‘Ugly I’m Sorry’ is softer and more reserved, opening with Mountain Man-style vocal harmonies which are succeeded by the onset of Berger’s wonderfully flowing and poetic lyrics, before the final track ‘A Swarm’, which has Yowler-esque guitars and lyrics that proclaim love’s ability to protect and heal (“oh surround me with your love strong as a swarm of bees”).
Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World is a terrific album. It’s as rich and as complex as life itself, steeped in passion and poetry, whirring like the universe and everything in it. There’s a line at the end of ‘Ugly, Im Sorry’ that sums up the whole release rather nicely, capturing its in a handful of words far better than I am able to in this review:
“And I wanna hold your hand
and go explore the pulsing humming darkness”
You can get Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World on cassette via Mt Home Arts. As usual with the label, the tape comes in a lovely package, complete with a hand- and die-cut silkscreened package with artwork by Longhaul.
The release also sees the start of an exciting new stage in the life of Mt. Home Arts. They’ve joined forces with the folks at Apollonian Sound, meaning we should expect more great hand-crafted items in the future! Stay tuned for more news on the “collaborative publishing collective”, it promises to be pretty exciting.
