Occupying the overlap between chamber folk and slowcore, the work of Olin Janusz is derived from what he calls “the primordial struggle of working class upbringing and his own poor decisions.” A joint release between Stellar Frequencies, Araki Records and Candlepin Records, forthcoming album Please Leave Quietly descends into the darkest folds of this experience. Its grand sound is ladened with a weary ache as though Janusz is dragging himself through its shadowy halls.
Back in January we described how lead single ‘The Throat’ “disperses this emotion into its various component parts—tenderness, fatalism and patient attention,” while ‘Quarter Light’ sees the London-born, Boston-based songwriter succumb to the nocturnal pull. An anthem for the defeated and pessimistic which paints the world as a hollow shell of itself, the will to go on hardly worth the breath it takes to voice it. But within the nihilistic tone stirs something else too, an almost playful edge snaking its smoky path above the scene, as though on reaching the bottom there’s little point in anything other than a wry grin.
Described as “somewhere between a dirge and a eulogy,” the album’s latest single ‘Crowland’ walks us close to the record’s grief-stricken heart through a final encounter with a paternal figure about to be lost. Pedal steel and mellotron offer a stark and sombre backdrop, and Logan Farmer lends his vocals to further the melancholic atmosphere. Following this path, Janusz leads us into the strange duality of death in all of its visceral, unreal weight. Much of the track proceeds at barely a murmur, and even as it builds towards the climax of its almost seven-minute runtime, there’s a lingering sense of incompleteness. As though, like grief itself, the escalation does not lead towards some ultimate reckoning, but rather an ache or wound.
Please Leave Quietly will be released on 5th April via Stellar Frequencies, Araki Records and Candlepin Records and you can pre-order it from Bandcamp.
