02 Mar 2012 — Henning Lahmann
Cursillistas used to be the principal project of Portland, Maine folk wizard Matthew Lajoie before his other critically acclaimed venture
Herbcraft really took off. Though on indefinite hiatus now, Lajoie's own imprint has recently released
Observe Ember Weeks, the project's "final studio album", gathering ten songs that were written, recorded, and mixed between 2007 and 2009. This is some superb music here, literally breathtaking free folk transmissions that are as psychedelic as they are noise- and drone-informed. The multi-layered improv-leaning monster "Frontier Gothic", which needs almost three minutes to fully kick off (just wait for it), is one of the most staggering instances of its genre that I've ever come across, effortlessly combining all elements that made the US free folk scene so exciting in the first place. This is heavy, dense, demanding, yet instantly accessible and thoroughly entrancing music, or in other words: truly sublime.
Observe Ember Weeks is out now on
L'animaux Tryst (Field) Recordings. Edition of 225, deluxe 150-gram virgin black vinyl held in a four-color, five-layer silkscreened art paper jacket. Get it
here.
Cursillistas - Frontier Gothic
