We met right as the pandemic began. On our first meeting, our chatter circled around Sade, Yellow Eyes (and then, Yellow Swans), Xasthur, Boys II Men. Soon after, we began casually swapping sketches of compositions originally intended for solo projects, but this quickly became a game of remixing each others’ stems and building a sound together. We tried a number of things on for size—singing lyrics, switching instruments, excursions into construction zones and Los Angeles hillsides with field recorders. Our individual styles were reinforced as our own—Geneva’s love for abstraction in sound, Erin’s affinity for structural composition—though the boundaries around our practices became more porous to make room for the other’s.

Coming from disparate musical words meant that we needed to adapt to each others’ compositional styles. This meant solving compositional puzzles and answering questions we wouldn’t have otherwise asked. For one of us, what do I do with what sounds like a sparking telephone wire? For the other, does it make sense to add cello to what sounds like a failing motor engine? Yes, it does.

Please Us is a contemplative falling-in-love album; a record of relative alienation, re-entry, and reconfiguration. Its sharp edges speak to the heartbreak of witnessing a misaligned social order repeat its own mistakes, and its softer slopes whisper comforting phrases of stretched-out time, warm evening walks, and solace found in the human embrace.

credits

releases September 24, 2021

All tracks composed and performed by Erin Dawson and Geneva Skeen
Cover image Geneva Skeen