Don’t Shy Away

Description

On December 26th, 2018, Emily Cross received an excited email from a friend: Brian Eno was talking about her band on BBC radio. At first I didnt think it was real, she admits. But then she heard a recording: Eno was praising Black Willow from Lomas self-titled debut, a song whose minimal groove and hypnotic refrain seem as much farewell as a manifesto: I make my bed beside the road / I carry a diamond blade / I will not serve you. He said hed had it on repeat.

At the time, a second Loma album seemed unlikely. The band began as a serendipitous collaboration between Cross, the multi-talented musician and recording engineer Dan Duszynski, and Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg, who wanted to play a supporting role after years at the microphone. Theyd capped a grueling tour with a standout performance on a packed beach at Sub Pops SPF 30 festival, in which Cross leapt into the crowd, and then into the sea, while the band carried on from the stagean emotional peak that also felt like a natural ending. It was the biggest audience wed ever had, she says. We thought, why not stop here?

Following the tour, Cross went to rural Mexico to work on visual art and a solo record, while Meiburg began a new Shearwater effort. But after a few months apart (and Enos encouraging words), the trio changed their minds and reconvened at Duszynskis home in rural Texas, where they began to develop songs that would become Dont Shy Away. Loma writes by consensus, and though Cross is always the singer, she, Duszynski and Meiburg often trade instruments. Meiburg compares their process to using a ouija board, and says the songs revealed themselves slowly, over many months. Each of us is a very strong flavor, he says, but in Loma, nobody wears the crown, so we have to trust each otherand we end up in places none of us would have gone on our own. I think we all wanted to experience that again. The album that emerged is gently spectaculara vivid work whose light touch belies its timely themes of solitude, impermanence, and finding light in deep darkness. Stuck / beneath / a rock, Cross begins, as if noticing her predicament for the first time. Then she adds: I begin to see / the beauty in it.

Its a couplet that evokes the album in miniature. Dont Shy Away is shot through with revelations, both joyful (Given a Sign) and sober (the clear-eyed title track), and winds from moment to moment with confidence and humor. Like Lomas first effort, theres a tangible and sensuous feeling of place; insects sing in the trees, an ill-fitting door creaks in the wind. But theres also a daring and hard-won wisdom, underlined by Crosss benevolent clarinet, which often sounds like an extension of her singing voice. Ocotillos desert landscape unreels into a blazing sun; Elliptical Days seems to ascend endlessly like Eschers circling monks; the jubilant Breaking Waves Like a Stone appears out of a haze of synthesizers that pulse like fireflies. A series of guests wander through these absorbing soundscapes, including touring members Emily Lee (piano, violin) and Matt Schuessler (bass), Flock of Dimes/Wye Oaks Jenn Wasner, and a surprisingly bass-heavy horn section.

And then theres Brian Eno. Loma invited him to participate in the mantra-like Homing, which concludes the album, and sent him stems to interact with in any way he liked. He never spoke directly with the band, but his completed mix arrived via e-mail late one night, without warning, and they gathered to listen in the converted bedroom Duszynski uses as a control room. I was a little worried, says Cross. What if we didnt like it? But it was all theyd hoped for: minimal but enveloping, friendly but enigmatic, as much Loma as Enoa perfect ending to an album about finding a new home inside an old one. I am somewhere that you know, Cross sings, above a chorus of her bandmates blended voices. I am right behind your eyes.