Matthew Flores
Eli Winter is such a great guitarist. His beautiful collaboration with Cameron Knowler, "Anticipation" from 2021, was how he first got my attention. And this album deserves YOUR attention! :-)
Favorite track: Davening in Threes.
Thomas Gierach
The instrumentation here is great! The last 90 seconds of Davening in Thees is some of the most beautiful sounding music I've ever heard.
Favorite track: Davening in Threes.
While great song craft is nothing new for Eli Winter, the additional of tons of crack performers with him in the studio is a whole new vibe. Strap in and get ready. Winter's self-titled album is presented here on 140g black vinyl pressed by Furnace Mfg. in Virginia. Housed within delightful full cover jacket with multi-sided insert. You're gonna love it.
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Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Chicago-based guitarist / composer Eli Winter’s new self-titled album finds him building on the promise of his recent records—like 2020’s Unbecoming and his 2021 collaboration with Cameron Knowler, Anticipation—with a gem of an album on which he leads an ad-hoc group that delicately balances a range of colors and moods. Winter is an accomplished player with impeccable technique and an unassuming virtuosity, capable of both mesmerizing intricacy and florid romanticism, but on Eli Winter he frequently plays a supporting role, creating ample room for his collaborators. The result is the sound of an artist escaping any lingering shadows of his primary influences and coming into his own; ironically, Winter does this by deemphasizing his role as traditional bandleader. Assisted by a murderer’s row of peers and contemporaries including Cameron Knowler, Yasmin Williams, David Grubbs, Ryley Walker, Tyler Damon, jaimie branch, and others, Eli Winter showcases a compositional depth and authoritative skill only hinted at on Winter’s rightfully acclaimed previous work.
“For a Chisos Bluebonnet” begins the album on a perky and playful note, placing Winter in conversation with guitarist Knowler and pedal steel dynamo Sam Wagster, displaying in microcosm the dialectical, sympathetic collaborative language that is a hallmark of the album. The sound, largely captured by engineer Cooper Crain, is light and tight, with a panoramic clarity that renders the music lifesize. “Davening In Threes” continues, at first, the galloping, exuberant feel of its predecessor, as the harmonizing guitars of Wagster, Knowler, and Winter manage to extract beauty from a bluegrass breakdown tempo. Then, suddenly, Williams joins the trio for an interlude of harmonics before the suite concludes with a martial third act in 6/8 time. At this point it’s as if Winter begins to intuitively worry that all this prettiness is making us a tad too comfortable. The antidote arrives in the form of the dark-hued “No Fear,” which sounds like a prelude to a showdown; the slow-burn improvisation blends Wagster’s slingshots of whinnying pedal steel, Jordan Reyes’ rangy synthesizer scramble, and all manner of tube-sizzling, tremolo bar scree by Winter, Knowler, and Walker. The track provides no catharsis but rather hums with a sustained, agitated intensity.
Side two begins with the pastoral post-rock of “Brain on Ice,” a soaring piece almost tender in its elegance, punctuated by the telepathic rapport of Damon’s percussion and Knowler’s nimbly ruminative acoustic guitar. “Dayenu” sounds at first as if it were composed on a commission or a dare to convey in sound a twinkle of the eye, before its fake-out ending pivots to a dramatic crescendo of branch’s proclamatory flugelhorn, Knowler’s rabbit-punch guitar interjections, and a shower of cymbals courtesy of Damon. The album saves the best for last, in the form of “Unbecoming,” which features Winter on 12-string guitar alongside Grubbs’ spectral harmonium and the harmonic, birdsong-evoking trills of Whitney Johnson’s viola, before gradually clearing a space for Liz Downing’s bowed banjo and a distant choir, courtesy of Downing and vocalist Giulia Chiappetta, whose lush harmonies provide the welcome and unexpected sound of heavenly human voices just as the song begins to fade, concluding the album with a tacit reminder, perhaps, that when God is busy or silent or absent, angels often pick up the slack.
-James Toth-
credits
released August 19, 2022
Eli Winter: acoustic guitar (1, 2, 4), electric guitar (3, 5), 12-string acoustic guitar (6)
Tyler Damon: drums (1-5)
Sam Wagster: pedal steel guitar (1-5)
Cameron Knowler: electric guitar (1-3, 5), acoustic guitar (4)
Yasmin Williams: electric guitar (2)
Ryley Walker: electric guitar (3)
Jordan Reyes: synthesizer (3)
jaimie branch: flugelhorn (5)
Whitney Johnson: viola (6)
David Grubbs: harmonium (6)
Liz Downing: bowed banjo, vocals (6)
Giulia Chiappetta: vocals (6)
Engineered at Shirk Studios, Chicago, IL, by Cooper Crain, and remotely from Chicago, IL; Woodbridge, VA; rural VT; Brooklyn, NY; Baltimore, MD; Los Angeles, CA.
Mixed by Brian Sulpizio, Chicago, IL.
Mastered by Carl Saff, Chicago, IL.
Three Lobed Recordings is a boutique record label that specializes all flavors of psychedelia. The label was started in 2000 and is largely operated by cats.
bill nace's music opens worlds, open spaces. experience for yourself. please check out this one as well as "through a room" - https://billnace.bandcamp.com/album/through-a-room Three Lobed Recordings
I’m so grateful this crossed my path. This album is so beautiful. All the clear technique and mastery and vision are kinda secondary to the fact that this album brought me calm and joy during one of the most difficult times in my life. Yeah, grateful. David McCullough
Space rock jams get experimental and slightly evil with zoned out synths and wheezing guitar lines plus soft, sweet vocals. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 20, 2017
