Released in 2021 on Whited Sepulchre Records, Desert Liminal‘s Glass Fate found the Chicago band “settling into a higher form,” as we put it at the time, with violinist and noise artist Mallory Linehan (AKA Chelsea Bridge) joining Sarah Jane Quillin and Rob Logan to elevate their trademark dreamy aesthetic “to not only open up new [sonic] territory to explore, but also hone these lines of experimentation to give everything a tight and polished feel.” The result was akin to listening to the band “evolving in real time,” as we continued. “The sense of maturing into something harder and firmer without sacrificing the poetic air.” But while things might have appeared to be naturally coalescing into a more perfect form, the record came from a tumultuous period. A time in which Quillin lost a parent, saw beloved musical project Heavy Dreams come to an end and even witnessed a traumatic near-death experience involving Logan onstage. As though on some level Desert Liminal were rising to a challenge, Logan and Linehan helping Quillin evolve in response to intense pressures in the hope of being able to make it through.
The forthcoming Desert Liminal album Black Ocean in many ways represents a continuation of this process. With the outfit now cemented as a trio, Linehan joins Quillin as a songwriter and vocalist, grounding the nascent sense of collaboration and connection which emerged on Glass Fate as a core facet of Desert Liminal. A development which is thematically resonant too, the record exploring ways in which death can be faced communally, and grief transmuted into something affirming and meaningful. Chicago’s DIY scene carried Quillin through the worst experiences, and Black Ocean looks to distil this experience into its purest form.
The resulting songs often seem like love letters to the people in these communities. Those figures who stood next to you through the best and worst of times. Fittingly, lead single ‘Kid Detroit’ is addressed to Logan himself, a nostalic recollection of those years on tour together, even when both were decimated by loss. “It’s funny to miss the times when you were younger and a total wreck,” as Quillin puts it. Something the vocals reference with a certain wry fondness. “Didn’t we tour in the Driftless?” the song asks. “Gone darker than a Midwest bar / Rolled in with the tide of my ego slight / Always stuck in my own blue thought.” But if Black Ocean is about anything, it is that no-one need be stuck in their blue thoughts alone. ‘Kid Detroit’ is the first example of how a bleak experience can be melted down and recast as something precious.
