Laura Sheeran – Music for the Deep Woods

by 5:4

It’s January, when we take time to recover from the repercussions of our festive financial shenanigans, and i once again turn my attention to some of the best music available that doesn’t require – but no doubt deserves, if you can – any kind of payment.

i originally cottoned on to the existence of Irish musician Laura Sheeran in 2008, via her involvement in other artists’ projects, specifically several Fovea Hex releases – the Bloom EP and Andrew Liles collaboration Gone Every Evening – and the Pantaleimon album Heart of the Sun. She also appeared prominently on the first Fovea Hex album Here is Where We Used to Sing in 2011, her performance of ‘Falling Things (Where Does A Girl Begin?)’ being one of the most lovely things on that ravishing release. It was that same year that i first listened to Sheeran’s 2010 EP Music for the Deep Woods, an experience that turned me into an instant fan of her work, which i’ve followed as best i can ever since.

As its title in part suggests, Music for the Deep Woods is an EP rooted in a place of nocturnal darkness, reflecting and ruminating on subject matter that’s both painful and poignant (a fitting description for much of her output). Opening song ‘Lupine Rot’ explores the perception that “My girlfriend’s lover looks like a wolf”, musically caught in a transfixed state that seems to be equal parts awe, lust and fear. Rooted on a deep, organ-like drone, with a constant tremolando indicating bristling anxiety, Sheeran’s vocal emerges as an unsettling breathy chorus, female and male, human and animal. There’s real focus in the unwavering way the song is articulated, more impassioned in its charged second verse – “She cries and tears fall to his cheeks, / A smile across his lupine face…” – but comes out the other side in a static but gorgeously rich place. This complexity of mixed emotions extends in ‘Under the Ice’, where the lyrics intermingle cold and hot: “The slap of cold, the sting of heat, / I’m burning, I’m burning under here. / Tears stream and freeze…” – while Sheeran’s gentle demeanour (accompanied by the most benign electric piano) talks about “panic in the atmosphere”. It seems to be unfolding in the same measured way as ‘Lupine Rot’, but around halfway tilts sideways, seemingly becoming something completely other, captured in an unexpected, oblique reverie of graceful sliding tones, only to, equally unexpectedly, resume its previous course in a wordless coda.

‘Suspension Belt’ is the first of two instrumental tracks on Music for the Deep Woods, It seems innocuous at first, some piano chords, distorted sounds from a tape playing at shifting speeds, all very calm and neutral. Yet the tape becomes hyper, the piano asserts itself, and everything swells into a large fuzzy texture, with doublings of the piano within and below, like an obsessive folk melody. It’s as exhilarating as it is unexpected, abruptly reducing to nothing just as quickly. Penultimate track ‘Ag Cuimhniú’ [remembering] has a similar folk-like simplicity at first, voice and guitar sounding from within a pale ambient backdrop. Again, though, the restrained lyricism transforms into passion later, mingling intimacy with melancholy, and articulating both a deep desire for, and diffiulties to establish, connection: “Maybe if you speak a language I don’t understand, / I will be able to only hold your hand.”

The EP ends with ‘Rain Song’, the second instrumental, and once again Sheeran initially keeps it simple. We hear rain and thunder, a soft reverberant chord sequence, a high piercing tone pushing outwards. Slow, breathy vocalise flows above, and just as everything feels comfortable and fixed, the music sags, the harmonic progression is broken and the track tilts from solemnity into a potent sense of sorrow. i can’t help hearing its abrupt end, after barely three minutes, as an extra indicator of the depth of feeling: no neatly structured conclusion, no final sentiments, just an immediate, necessary stop.

Music for the Deep Woods was originally released as a free MP3 download in 2010, via the OpenMusic netlabel, but Sheeran has subsequently made it available as a free download from her own Bandcamp site.

Several of Sheeran’s releases have turned out to be short-lived, available only for a limited time, which is a real shame as her output is consistently fascinating, emotionally powerful, and often stunningly beautiful. Of the currently unavailable releases, i’d flag up four early works, the EPs Echo and To the Depths, the mini-album Murderous Love (which i’m very happy to possess in an extremely limited handmade edition) and the soundtrack to Paperdolls, all of which deserve to be out in the world, bewitching listeners’ ears and minds. However, if Music for the Deep Woods has piqued your interest, i highly recommend following up with her albums Lust of Pig & The Fresh Blood (2011) and What the World Knows (2012), both also available free from Sheeran’s Bandcamp site. She also has a brand new instrumental single out, ‘Basra Moon’, released on 1 January, and an intriguing, sexually-charged, pole-dancing alter-ego Persona, under which name she put out two songs last summer, with an album coming this year.

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Jeremy Shatan

The new single sounds very cool – will dig in further to her work.

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