I really, really like Trouble Books, the husband and wife duo from Akron, OH. If you’ve been reading for long enough, then you probably already know that, as I featured their previous album Love At Dusk last year, and the excellent Concatenating Fields before that. So I was rather disappointed to discover that, as of this year, Trouble Books were no more.
The good news is that Keith Freund and Linda Lejsovka are still recording music. They have recently released a new album entitled Mold On Canvas. The bad news is that I’m late to this party and the LPs have already sold out. But don’t let stop you from checking out what proves to be a nuanced, interesting release.
The band describe their new sound as “DIY Shitty Classical”, which I can’t help feeling is a small slice of false modesty. Let’s get it straight that I know next to nothing about classical music, and I’m not particularly interested in its finer points, but I’m struggling to see how anyone could describe this album as “shitty”. Freund explains, “Mold on Canvas” is an exploration of ability… trespassing into the academic or classical music world with an amateur’s guess on pushing the right keys.”
The album opens with ‘Borrowed Mic Test’, which gently buzzes and pulses into life, the cautious wing-beats of the Lejsovka & Freund moniker as it emerges from its chrysalis. After just two and a half minutes this sonic lepidopteran takes flight, as pianos take over and we get our first glimpse of the new “classical” angle. Next up is ‘Hexations’, with its initial jarring slide giving way to some mournful piano. The title track is sad and pretty in all the right ways and ‘From Royal Ave’ shimmers with a warm, droning fuzz, cut through with some really nice strings.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/153778168″]
Freund seems to have had a pretty clear picture in mind when composing these pieces, “These pieces are made by and for the view from huge sunroom windows overlooking a wooded ravine.” My advice would be to find yourself a sunroom, or just a wooded ravine (or really anywhere pretty), and let yourself drift off with it.
Mold On Canvas is a sad album, but not ‘sad’ in its usual usage, meaning upsetting or morose, but instead a different sad: a reflective, comforting sad, one almost synonymous with beautiful. I like it a lot, and I think you might too.
You can download it in its entirety via Bark & Hiss