“Restrained in tone but foregrounded by the arrangement’s haunted quiet, murmured as though in distant regret or world weary contemplation.” We might have been writing of the single ‘Passing Through‘ from MVSO‘s debut EP Proprioception with this line, but the sentiment can be applied more generally across the release. The project of Brooklyn-based duo Mat Vairo and Saumon Oboudiyat, MVSO deals with existential themes in a distinctly personal manner, offering a controlled and often grounded sound which simmers with implicit depth.
In ‘Passing Through’ “a stark guitar line draws the listener through the track’s shadows,” as we put it, “where the muted ambient sounds blur into the background to evoke a sense of empty clarity,” while ‘Heaven’ draws inspiration from Olivier Nakache’s film The Specials (originally Hors normes). “Marbling intimate tenderness and haunting space to form something airy yet loaded with unseen weight,” as we wrote in a recent preview, the song evoked the spirit of the film to offer “a testament to the compassionate potential of people in a world which can seem determined to prove the opposite.” This balance between sparsity and warmth is clear on ‘You Can Have It Your Way’ too, another track economical in its lyricism and almost spectral in sound, an attempt to communicate fundamental truths via stark elements: “Between / The lines / You’ll see / You’ll find / Your light / Is light / In time / Heals mine.”
With a shadowed, brooding tone which calls to mind the likes of Logan Farmer, ‘Hourglass’ offers a plaintive sound, though even within this seemingly morose soundscape comes a quiet urgency. An exhortation to act and free oneself. Closer ‘Bird Cage’ follows with its own prospects of escape. The song in many ways feels like the encapsulation of the entire EP. An ode to the beauty of sparsity, as though the aim is to strip down language until there nothing remains but its bare bones and some intuitive truth might reveal itself. “Before words,” as the the song concludes, “We knew / Without knowing.”
Proprioception is out now and available from the MVSO Bandcamp page.