Earlimart
Indie Rock / Alternative
Earlimart’s Treble & Tremble is a reaction to someone leaving the room without saying a word. It’s a lush, haunting affair informed by loss, but with a determined effort to let go and move on, tying clean knots from a tangle of loose ends. With numerous references to telephones, reports, conversation and music itself, Treble and Tremble is about communication and how we fail to communicate. Yet, amid the white noise, the record is also a celebration of the moments we break through.
“At its heart,” says Earlimart singer/songwriter Aaron Espinoza, “it’s a record about love.”
Treble & Tremble is filled with the warm, breathy vocals and expansive arrangements that earned the band’s 2003 releases The Avenues E.P. and Everyone Down Here critical praise from journalists and peers alike. Crafted by piano-driven melodies, layered in a patchwork of guitars and strings, the finished tracks are the accomplished efforts of Espinoza’s expanding production expertise. The record’s greatest moments come in repeated listens, when the peppered distortion and crackling noise lifts to reveal striking parts inescapably missed.
Earlimart’s progression from an X- and Pixies-inspired experimental punk band to their current sound is the result of experience and process. Espinoza, raised in Fresno, CA near the tiny Central Valley town that inspired the band’s name, along with Los Angeles native and original member Ariana Murray (bass, keys), grew out of their influences and defined their own signature by years of touring and self-recording. “It just seemed like an easy thing to do in the beginning -- get behind a distortion pedal and scream a little bit,” Espinoza recounts. “But once you start playing piano, it fucks everything else up.”
If it derailed punk rock ambition, the piano left in its place something more sophisticated and lasting. You can hear the piano’s lead from start to finish, defining the album from the first track “Hold On Slow Down.” A one-sided conversation spoken in futility and giving up to hope, the keys punctuate swirling synths and crackling static until it falls away and re-emerges as the intrepid crescendo that opens “First Instant Last Report.” “The Hidden Track” is the perfect Earlimart staple, a classic pop song that begins with layered acoustic guitar and warm vocals eventually building into an overture of keys and cellos and crashing cymbals.
Treble & Tremble was produced and recorded by Espinoza and Jim Fairchild (Grandaddy) with Murray, at the band’s Ship studio, home to a collective of like-minded artists nestled in the foothills of Eagle Rock, CA. The Ship studio – constructed by Espinoza, formerly employed as a carpenter among several other amusing vocational diversions – has also earned a reputation outside of its usual crew, hosting sessions by the Folk Implosion, the Breeders and Elliott Smith. Additional contributions to the record came from Earlimart drummer David Latter, Scott McPherson (Elliott Smith) and Brian Thornell (Pine Marten).
The Earlimart that passed through your town last year during a tireless stretch of touring surprised audiences with explosive energy, exemplified by their cover of Wire’s “Strange.” Performing an uptempo, distortion-soaked rock show with whispering ballads opening and closing the sets, Earlimart challenged audiences by separating the pace of the studio recordings from their live counterparts. Audiences can expect more of the same with an expanded presentation, including multiple keyboards and guitars and the addition of Fairchild and guitarist Joel Graves.
Perhaps it’s a year’s seasoning, perhaps it’s the conciseness of Treble’s lyrical content, but the record is more focused and refined than its predecessor. “The last one was a mood record,” Espinoza says. “Treble isn’t without mood, but I think there are fewer atmospheric decoys. This one focuses on the songwriting and the themes of the songs. We experienced a major loss last year, but in spite of that, I feel like this is a triumphant record. I think the songs retain a bit of hope.”
Treble & Tremble’s soul is its second half, its side two had it been recorded thirty years ago. There’s a vintage Seventies riff that punctuates the quiet regret in witnessing the destruction of “Broke the Furniture,” followed by the thunderous guitar-driven catharsis and unsettling mechanized vocals on “Unintentional Tape Manipulations.” That storm yields to the beautifully fragile “Heaven Adores You,” easily the most heartbreaking song the band has written to date. The suite “Tell the Truth Parts 1 & 2” is at times Lennon-esque: stark, spare and inquisitive with its bleeding heart stitched to a sleeve, a song that asks a few last, lingering questions and teeters close to resignation. Espinoza sings, “I know I’m out of reach/And all the songs are out of key,” and returns, if only to remind himself, “Well I guess you just don’t know/You don’t know shit about me”.
Unwavering and accepting, Espinoza closes Treble & Tremble on “It’s Okay to Think About Ending,” easing in with a simple piano and vocal melody before unfolding into something understated yet gorgeous, its orchestral instrumentation delicate and offering the album’s most poignant simple request: “Take care of your heart.”
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