Sylvan Esso
Ow ∞

 

 

 

 

 

78点相当  Pitchfork

75点相当  Paste

 

 

 

5th

 

 

" ノースカロライナ州ダーラムの長年の家を離れ、ロサンゼルスに落ち着いた直後、2025年1月の山火事に囲まれることになった"  

 

 

 

 

https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/sylvan-esso/sylvan-esso-weather-disaster-on-ow

 

The journey to Sylvan Esso’s fifth studio album was a cross-country trip, with a storm on either side. Quite literally—Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn left their longtime home in Durham, North Carolina, in the wake of Hurricane Helene in late 2024; shortly after they settled in Los Angeles, they found themselves surrounded by the January 2025 wildfires. The duo was already mourning the loss of their close friend Jessica, who died of sudden liver failure in 2023. If there is a single throughline on Ow ∞ (pronounced “Ow Infinity”), it’s grief. It’s not an album about death, per se, but about living in the wake of unimaginable loss, overcoming the pain that keeps piling up—“the suffering of suffering,” as Meath calls it on “Flood Season.” 

“Keeps on being flood season,” goes the song’s chorus, Meath’s delivery rote and matter-of-fact over a glitchy beat that jitters with static electricity. There’s nothing for her to do but keep wading through. Like the infinity sign in the album’s title, Meath and Sanborn’s sparse, patchy pieces of garage rock and indietronica loop like a Möbius strip of inevitable misfortune. “Thank goodness that it keeps on going,” Meath sings on “Ribbon,” then: “When does it fucking end?”