Back in March, we write about Static Thick, the debut full-length release from Desert Liminal. We described the record as “a dark album not afraid of light, not afraid of dreaming, and not afraid of crushing these hopes beneath an air both ominous and static thick,” which gets somewhere near the strange dreamy vibe that constitutes the Desert Liminal sound. Led by Sarah Jane Quillin’s poetic songwriting, this is music both nebulous and striking, like dreams that stick with you long after waking.
Comb For Gold is a brand new Desert Liminal EP, out on Chicago’s new cassette label Fine Prints (which was set up by Ziyad Asrar of Whitney/Smith Westerns and Robbie Haynes of Strange Magic Recording). The four song release builds upon the band’s previous record, honing their style into tight aesthetic. Their Facebook page lists an array of influences, from Owen Ashworth and John Maus to John Prine and Arthur Russell, as well as those outside of music like Jean Baudrillard and Ottessa Moshfegh, and their distinctive sound makes such a wide net make perfect sense.
To start, ‘Gauze Cave’ draws on Ashworth’s lonely synths in the opening, though soon these are overridden by electrical streaks and thunderous reverb. As on Static Thick, Quillin’s delivery remains somewhat even against this tumult, crooned and poetic, emerging not beyond the instrumentation but from within it. This lends a sense of intuition to the abstract vocals, their organic cadence linked as though the words of some spell or incantation.
“spectral sunrise, lock and dam decay
the wind, the wings of soft ascension
saw you braid the blackbirds, clear as dayspecter, doctor, cop
on where i paint my hatred
cryin’ loud, but no one flies the plane”
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The title track leans a little more toward a synth pop style, though one half speed and haunted. The detached vibe brings to mind the apparent influence of Moshfegh, sharing that sense of dislocation from so-called ‘real’ life that sets her writing apart. Desert Liminal continually maintain a similarly odd feel, a kind of singular strangeness that suggests this world is not quite their own.
The Moshfegian vibes are stronger still on ‘Flashbacks’, the track calling to mind her most recent novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The book involves an unnamed narrator in 00s New York who attempts to hibernate for an entire year, working toward her personal renewal through a psychopharmaceutical haze. Punctuating her stupor are memories of her parents and their untimely deaths, like vivid flashes amidst the fog, and ‘Flashbacks’ sets up a similar dynamic. The song is subdued and sedate, rising to moments of clarity that could themselves be false—memory, dream and hallucination rendered indistinguishable.
i got a knife if he comes back
clean nights you want, and the ones you ask for
knock it loose and write if he come on home
flashbacks you know, and the ones you stole fromlone mass was a chair and a Sazerac
strange memory love that couldn’t give back to mewhether I set it up, whether he’s real or not
whether the wind, the wings, the things I saw
were true or false or Halcion”
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The drums on closing track ‘Lilac Signal Fires’ are deeper and more pressing, so while Quillin’s delivery keeps its ethereal level, the song is somewhat more urgent. Indeed, the track forms something of a nightmare, an apocalyptic vision vivid enough to trigger a fight-or-flight response, though again the boundary between dream and reality feels tenuous, if not altogether absent.
when the horizon fell, i knelt like velvet rope
when the sky vault falls, i’ll fight like hellwe surf an end tide
money cult of children, cryptobillionaires
some old man reptiles wiling out
you held my lost earth inside
those lilac eyes, like signal fires
some old man reptile couldn’t buy
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Comb For Gold is out now via Fine Prints and you can get it from Bandcamp.
