((O))

Wentworth Kersey

Plastic Sound Supply, 2010

http://www.myspace.com/wentworthkersey

REVIEW BY: Vish Iyer

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 11/19/2010

Wentworth Kersey (WK) looks at roots music through the subconsciousness of a dream; anything is possible in the realm of its music, which is full of vivid details that are sometimes too hazy to be sensible, but always vibrant with beauty and mysteriousness. The band’s acoustic folksy tunes have the naked earthiness of a folk romantic singing tales of trials and tribulations. But this duo seeks much more than the beauty of the outward simplicity of their songs. my_heart_sings_the_harmony_web_ad_alt_250

Like a child filling the world around its toys made alive only by imagination, WK fills their tunes with a rich underbelly of music and sounds that are faint almost to the extent that they almost become a product of the listener’s imagination: a phantom limb that lingers angelically in the shadows of the music.

Through WK’s album series – O, (O), and ((O)) – it suffices to say that this band’s music is about creating a landscape more than about simply creating plain acoustic music that tells a story. But the band has their heart immersed in Americana. Even when they muster the audacity to sing the album’s opening number “Broken Down Knees” in French, they lose none of their rootsiness in their jab at exoticism.

The dreaminess of ((O)) lies not only in its softly played musical lavishness. The vocals sing with a sort of equanimity that’s as pastoral and beautiful as the music it pursues to animate, and the tunes in the foreground are laidback and equable, like a slow stroll through the forest, absorbing all the sights and sounds of the complex but tranquil environment. There is only one track on the album – “Sun And Moon” – that features drums and a somewhat galloping pace.

With its abstracted, lavish adornments, WK’s music is almost psychedelic. But the band is no way a blasphemous folk crossover. They just have fanciful musings that they cannot resist but express in their music.

Rating: A

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