Description

In the making of their new album Darkness Brings The Wonders Home, Smoke Fairies drew inspiration from mysteries both real and imagined: sea monsters, flocks of crows taking flight in extravagant formation, strange creatures dwelling in the mud near their new South London abode. With their mesmeric vocal presence and starkly poetic lyrics, singer/multi-instrumentalists Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies embed all that odd magic into songs that speak to the realities of modern timesisolation, insomnia, an overall unease with the state of the worldand ultimately uncover an unlikely sense of hope.

Times of darkness are when people are often the most imaginative, says Davies in reflecting on the albums title. It helps you to see all the wonders of the world you hadnt noticed beforethe things youve been blind to because youve been on autopilot for so long.

Produced by Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, The Black Angels, The Shins), Darkness Brings The Wonders Home merges Smoke Fairies musings and meditations with a decidedly guitar-driven sound, the duos unearthly harmonies endlessly floating atop lead-heavy riffs. Over the course of a rigorous month-long session in Seattle, Smoke Fairies adopted a purposely intimate approach to achieving that singular sonic tone.

We spent a long time trying to fathom the direction we wanted to take on this album. At times the options seemed overwhelming, but as new songs started to form we realized we needed to take them back to our core sound our interplaying guitar parts says Davies. So then we had to really step up and do it ourselves, without relying on a band to fill anything in, which was quite a challengephysically, mentally, everything.

While Smoke Fairies initially intended to return to the earthy folk of early work like 2011s Through Low Light and Trees, the duo soon found themselves assuming a new boldness in their guitar style and, in turn, pushing into much wilder terrain. In doing so, Blamire and Davies spent much of their time perusing the guitar shop near Eks chosen studio, experimenting with countless guitars and amps to augment the albums sonic palette. It was like being in a sweet shop, getting to try all these guitars wed normally never be able to afford, says Blamire. We ended up making friends with guitars we never thought to use before, like this weird vintage Kay that sounded great but was so hard to playto the point where there were days when our fingers were bleeding, or we had blisters in places you didnt even know you could get them.

Opening with On the Wing, Darkness Brings The Wonders Home quickly proves the power of matching that pummeling guitar work with Smoke Fairies finespun songwriting. With its woozy intensity and spellbinding rhythms, the song also introduces one of the albums most prominent themes: the often-futile attempts at true connection at a time when the most impetuous behavior tends to prevail. When we were little my brother wrote a poem about waking up and finding hed changed into a swan overnight, with feathers growing out of his arms, says Blamire of the songs inspiration. To me thats an interesting metaphor for how people can grow into becoming quite flighty, where theyre never really able to settle in one place or with one person.

An album deeply informed by aberrations of nature, Darkness Brings The Wonders Home delves into a different kind of fascination on Out of the Woodsa song sparked from Smoke Fairies study of the overgrown pond behind their house. Theres something magical about all these weird things living out there in the mud, says Blamire. We started to project onto that, like the idea of something unexpected and good coming from the mud of your emotions. Another song attuned to the fear of the unknown, the hypnotically ominous Chew Your Bones mines inspiration from the titular beast of Sarah Perrys novel The Essex Serpent and from a local urban myth involving a character called The Croydon Cat Killer. For years people thought someone was going around killing catsthey put a proper police force on it and everything, and then realized its just foxes, Davies notes. Id also recently read an article about how some people feel uncomfortable with the idea of bringing kids into the world at the moment, she adds, We needed to write about the growing feeling that the world is on the verge of real change, there is the sense that there is this scary, unknown future lurking just beyond us .

Despite its many wanderings into otherworldly territory, Darkness Brings The Wonders Home remains rooted in real-life anxieties, particularly on tracks like the fluttering and urgent Dont You Want to Spiral Out of Control. The modern way of interacting around love seems too empty to meit feels like it makes us into much colder people than we ever were before, says Blamire. Its like were missing that spontaneity, the ability to bind together over something more than an image on a screen. That song came from wanting to just shake people and go, dont you want to spiral out of control again? Dont you want to just let loose?

Throughout Darkness Brings The Wonders Home, Smoke Fairies adorn their observations with so many exquisite flourishes: the swinging melodies and elegant shredding of Elevator, the girl-group harmonies and spiky riffs of Disconnect, the delicate tension between taut guitar lines and swooning vocals on Chocolate Rabbit.

For Smoke Fairies, Darkness Brings The Wonders Home signals a strengthening of the inextricable bond theyve forged through the years. So many of the songs are about these feelings of disconnection, but the irony is that Jessica and I have each other, and that means so much more than any of the other relationships that come and go, says Blamire. And because of that connection, the two found the courage essential for bringing such an emotionally trying album to life. I think what were attempting to show is that, in all this chaos thats so tumultuous and overwhelming, there are always ways to change your perspective, says Blamire. Making this album, we conquered so many worries and doubts and felt so much stronger at the endwe went right into the darkness, and somehow brought something incredibly positive out of it.

Blamire and Davies dont trade vocal duties so much as appear to sing from the same body, their voices nearly indistinguishable, shifting between smoky moans and toe-curling trills Pitchfork

Smoke Fairies rely on intertwiningtheir two voices move in close harmonies, with timbres blending almost like sisters. New York Times