Dear Eloise - The Words That Burnt

Dear Eloise - The Words That Burnt

 

It’s not surprising if you haven’t heard of Dear Eloise. They are a mysterious band known by very few people. But once you have listened to their songs, they will be branded into your heart.

The band came out around 2007, no definite date. It’s just an extension from a simple idea. Dear Eloise are Yang Haisong (P.K.14’s vocal) and his wife Sun Xia (P.K.14’s former bassist). No more words are needed, you will know how fantastic they are.

In their new debut album, 8 songs, like 8 journals, are the monologue of frail, words that were burnt. Not only is the melody as pure and beautiful as a childish rhythm, but also the background is as noisy as an aged guitar factory. However, the songs have delicate fluctuations and layers similar to a possessed river, the water of which keeps flowing without stop, while rumbling in marvelous dark and light colors. After silence is demolished by noise within a second, a sweet but defenseless angel appears on the ruins with a peaceful and merciful look. She has a voice like a beam of light. Besides, her white feet moving in the darkness not only seem to be a piece of poem flowing in summer, they also sound like mumbling in cool well water or under large shades. In addition, the noise is performed magically and mysteriously appears to build up like looming rain drops. In this aural atmosphere of dimness, the swinging lights bring discomfort and anxiety .

For most people, it is a brilliant album. What is rare is that it attracts people with its’ innocence and purity. Let’s imagine a picture in which the stars scald the sky and we crouch down on the lawn, stretching out our necks putting pressure on our knees. We look up to the dim but exciting glimmer, which hurts our eyes. Will we then cry?

The world you imagine is very far away. It resembles a fading cigarette end or a scar… If you can find meaning to my voice, then you can comprehend this fairy tale. Get out of the fluttering dream, dear Eloise. I am going to take you to a lively and awesome place where there are castles and festivals and days go by with a roar.  
https://downloads.maybemars.org/

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Dear Eloise - Beauty in Strangers

Dear Eloise - Beauty in Strangers

Beauty in Strangers is the second full-length studio album from Dear Eloise. The noise pop duo just released two 7 inch vinyl singles the other day before this album, which include one song from the album called Song For Her .
 

New album remains melodic and poetic from their last album The Words that Were Burnt, but more ambitious and courageous in instrumental. The couple’s tacit cooperation is felt in every detail. Sun Xia’s voice, cold and gentle, swirls through the syllables, and Yang Haisong’s striking talent controls all that in a perfect status.
Beyond the endless feedback, continuous sound wall and lo-fi fuzz background, you may see a “her”, dancing in the music.
released January 5, 2012
Producer: Yang Haisong (from P.K.14)
Cover Design: Hou Ge
https://downloads.maybemars.org/

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Dear Eloise - They Slipped Away From My Mind Just Like This

Dear Eloise - They Slipped Away From My Mind Just Like This Dear Eloise - Dreams of Mid-Summer (Official MV)

They Slipped Away From My Mind Just Like This — Beijing duo Dear Eloise’s fifth LP since first presenting themselves to the world with stunning, slow-motion 2010 debut full-length The Words That Were Burnt — plays out like a dream journal. Like all Dear Eloise releases, it’s pri-vate, personal, intimate, singular. The format of this album-length release — a five-7” box set — is fitting: Dear Eloise’s music is so rich, so layered, it’s almost physical.

Even by Dear Eloise’s doleful standards, the lyrics on They Slipped Away are melancholic, made even more achingly soul-piercing by vocalist Sun Xia’s unfailingly sweet, silken soprano delivery. “The tears will eventually fall, and wet a dream without a future,” she waxes on opener “Dreams of Mid-Summer,” singing elsewhere on the album of “a world where there is no trace of light” (“Heart of Wave”) and “forgetting yourself in this unchanging repetition” (“Empty Year”).

A tense edge permeates even Sun Xia’s most saccharine vocal moments, but the band’s som-ber poetics are only one flower in the bouquet, not the dominant element. Their sound on this album is as dense and engrossing as ever, a deep hedge of lush, sculpted noise to lose your-self in listen after listen.

Early album standout “Across the Time” refreshes the band’s tendency to build songs around small shifts in pitch, punctuating melodic simplicity and lyrical depth with a staccato double-time beat. “Rifacimiento” is a vintage piece of space-case-rock for a garage with no cars, just inches-thick carpet covering every surface, evoking the odor of fresh-cut summer grass mingling in the the air with rich, teeming rafts of reverb. “River of Lethe” will also please fans of peak ‘90s guitar slacker nostalgia, make you wanna get slanted & enchanted. Penultimate track “Escape” re-introduces Dear Eloise’s quintessential instrument of sonic surgery: a mellow buzzsaw of spiral-ing high-frequency feedback, hanging between voice, guitar, bass and drums like a late-night smoke, perpetually unfurling in the background of an eternal end-credit roll.

On this latest collection of expertly crafted anthems to emotional complexity — which includes an inspired cover of Xi’an band FAZI’s rousing anthem “Control” — the ultimate feeling is one of unaccountable hope: on They Slipped Away From My Mind Just Like This, Dear Eloise is world weary, but always hanging on.
released July 30, 2019

Sun Xia - vocals
Yang Haisong - guitar/bass/drums
https://downloads.maybemars.org/music
https://www.facebook.com/deareloise/

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