Eskmo’s “SOL” is not made for the dentist’s office

by Scott Wilson

SOL, Eskmo’s upcoming release, does not fit into any classifications. As an album, it’s an amalgamation of many styles and influences. Analogue and digital; melodic and discursive; lyrical and voiceless – whatever spectrum you can judge an album by – SOL has a foot on either end.

Other critics describe Eskmo’s style as “background music” and I won’t disagree that some of the songs definitely have that ambient, white noise quality, as if they belong in a movie. But then you have the main single, “Mind of War,” where the previous songs on the album can be passively listened to, “Mind of War” pulls the listener over to the stereo by the ear. It’s such a strange and vibrant song that a person can’t hold a conversation while it’s playing, and yet, up to that point on the album, and indeed after, talking over the music is not a problem.

At least defining a mood for the album is straightforward: subdued.  When listening to one of the more exciting songs, “The Light of One Thousand Furnaces,” a passing observer in the coffee shop where this review was written remarked, “What is this? Easy-listening techno?” I felt the urge to defend Eskmo, as if “easy-listening techno” was a bad thing, but the coffee shop critic was bobbing his head. SOL is music you can’t complain about.

As an experiment I would urge anybody who wants to give SOL a try to listen to the album twice, but in two different ways: on the first listen you should just have it playing on your headphones on the train or on computer speakers in the kitchen while dicing onions. On the next listen crank the volume all the way up on a good stereo or ear goggles. The difference is stark, right? This is why I would have trouble identifying Eskmo as an artist of background music. When you turn the noise up each song consumes the listener, often in a different way: “The Sun Is a Drum” will put you in a trance, yet “Blue and Grey” romances the listener with melody.

In a world where so much music sounds the same, as if the industry is holding a race for the lowest common denominator, SOL takes a stand for originality. The album is avant-garde, though not edgy. It would take a niche aficionado to really appreciate the way Eskmo’s tracks are arranged and performed, but a casual listener can appreciate the technical and musical mastery of nearly every song (though I hasten to say that certain songs have a wider appeal than others). If this album were playing front-to-back in a dentist’s waiting room it wouldn’t get a great response because some songs are just too out there, but in an art gallery it couldn’t be played through because some of the songs are just too methodical. The acoustic diversity of this album speaks to the artist’s skill, but does make it hard to sit through if you aren’t on board with the genre shifts. Having listened to the album the whole way through, five or six times, I found myself wanting to hear just this one song or that, but rushing to turn my speakers off before the next song, then a few hours later I might want the opposite.

Overall, SOL is an exciting and interesting album, both for its scope and nuance. It’s the kind of album you listen to as an adventure, a treat for a true music lover, looking to hear and experience something unique.

Album comes out March 3rd on Apollo Records. Get it wherever music is gotten.