Here Appear is an invocation, a salutation, and a celebration — of past and perfect lives, forgotten and remembered, exchanged and borrowed. Eve Essex’s solo debut is a multi-instrumental fea(s)t combining synthesizer, drum machine, alto saxophone, piccolo, electric organ/harpsichord, harmonica, slide whistle, bells, guitar pedals, and voice— composed, arranged, and performed by Essex herself. What began as an improv set at Berlin’s Harlekin bar developed, over the past two years, into a complete body of work evoking multiple time periods, genres, characters, and sonic landscapes. The seven tracks that make up Here Appear harness elements of classical, drone, avant-jazz, and distorted pop, coupled with an ambitious vocal delivery that draws on the phrasing and articulations of Essex’s own woodwind playing, to create a quasi-narrative m?lange retaining the vulnerability of live performance. On the opening track “Grind Away,” otherworldly harmonica strains set the stage for lyrics citing Chinese sci-fi novel The Third Body Problem as source material. Saxophone and piccolo interludes “Immediate Communicator” and “Colorless Stone” move between medieval-tinged melodic inventions and textural noise, recalling a Pharoah Sanders-influenced fever dream, while the linguistic abstractions of Russian conceptual poet Lev Rubinstein guide the looped, layered, and textured vocals of title track “Here Appear.” The album closes with a languid take on Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom’s 1978 composition “Clear Light” from My New Music, recently reissued by Unseen Worlds.
