Brooklyn band’s debut is a master class in polyrhythmic vocal innovation and beauty.
We were introduced to this Brooklyn band via their exciting debut EP Mommy Issues. With parents from Cameroon and Cote D’Ivoire, Esther Quansah (guitar, vocals) and Becky Foinchas (keyboard, vocals), cited influences like African wedding music, neoclassical symphonies, Afrobeat, Paramore, Kofi Olomide, and Warpaint. On that EP, the band sounded like an extension of the shapeshifting, ethereal music of Raincoats’ Odyshape (1981), Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s global post-punk fusion on Mambo Nassau (1981), and The Slits circa Return of the Giant Slits (1981) where they fuse their dub roots with skewed African rhythms.
After a long wait of three years, we finally have their debut full-length, though at barely over 30 minutes long, it’s less than 10 minutes longer than the EP. Yet it feels substantial with all that they pack into it., including lushly layered arrangements weaving Siera Leonean Adam Turay’s beautifully abstract guitar shapes and 12/8 polyrhythms courtesy of Jesse Heasly and Matt Bent, plus brass, strings and piano. The dense but dreamy production recalls peak Kate Bush, as well as the liquidy improvisations of Peluche, a band with similar aesthetics as Warpaint who once described themselves as trip jam. But where they really push things forward is their vocals, which careen through French, Spanish, and wordless yodels, whatever it takes for Quansah’s and Foinchas’ voices to express their spiritual and existential meditations. Check out the emotional range they project with just “la la la” on “The Maiden.” This is one area where Western music has played it very safe and conservative the past couple decades. I have to go back to Sheila Chandra’s ABoneCroneDrone (1996), Sussan Deyhim’s Madman of God: Divine Love Songs of the Persian Sufi Masters (2000), and Björk on Medúlla (2004) to find equally adventurous use of vocals in pop music.
It’s unclear if this self-released album will catch on, but at the end of the year when lists are tallied, all of them will be failures if they don’t include Dying.
On their Bandcamp page they also sell an art project, a Dying oracle deck with nine cards hand crafted by the Mareano of @base.lunar and “realized through the sentient consciousness of each track.” Wary of the intensity such a deck could inspire, they included this disclaimer: “We have strictly created these decks with the intention of exciting the visual senses in celebration of art, childish meriment, and handicraft. Aka we can’t predict your futures and encourage lightheartedness when consuming the material within the Dying decks.”
