In 2020, the acoustic Chicago-based Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble quietly released their debut album independently. It dazzled due to its mysterious open-ended gentleness created by melding American Primitive guitar styles, Western folk and vanguard traditions, Indian drones, and modal overtones to make music that seems to be on a journey. Signed by Josh Rosenthal to his ever-reliable Tompkins Square label, the trio deliver its sequel. This set is brighter, offering a seemingly directed, more complexly ordered ensemble narrative that simultaneously allows for deft individual interplay.
Elijah McLaughlin composes and plays six- and twelve-string acoustic guitars. He is joined by Joel Styzens on hammered dulcimer and Jason Toth on upright bass. There is little in the modern vernacular that the ensemble's music compares to.
Opener "Zodiac Rabbit" commences with droning arco bass and shimmering dulcimer notes.
McLaughlin alternately strums and fingerpicks through extended chordal drone. The bass drones get deeper and more frenetic as dulcimer and guitar frame it in an airy two-chord vamp. "Wheel" is introduced with kinetic fingerpicking joined by arco bass, while the hammered dulcimer creates a fluid, breathing backdrop as the other instruments lock then separate, cutting across tempos, modes, textures, and cadences. By contrast, "Arc" is spectral, contemplative tune. Introduced by a low-end bass drone,
McLaughlin adds jazzy 12-string chords that flirt with syncopated modal blues and flamenco picking. His progression is resonant and brooding. The hammered dulcimer becomes more insistent before creating an overtone drift that winds around the other instruments. "Spring" is the album's hinge piece. As Styzens and
McLaughlin engage a driving progression, Toth lags behind, filling the space with alternate harmonies, prompting the guitarist to investigate the tonal terrain in a killer solo. The bassist briefly drops the bow and responds with a flurry of pizzicato notes before reclaiming it on the outro. "Viroqua" directly draws on
John Fahey's expansive approach to Americana as the guitarist both fingerpicks and strums through a jaunty pastoral, supported in expansive, drifting rounds by the other instruments. Set-closer "Confluence" also draws deeply on
Fahey and
Ali Akbar Khan. It weds East and West in revealing the trio's tonal intersectionality as a remarkable conversational discovery. The ascending and descending bassline in "Effigy" becomes the axis the tune turns on. A bluesy, strummed guitar trades in octave drones as the dulcimer works in the upper and middle registers to create a melodic undertow; the bassist and guitarist expand it with intensity and forceful dynamics. The nearly processional "Blind Valley" follows as the dulcimer offers an expressionistic melody line atop hyperkinetic 12-string and crescendo-like basslines.
On
II, even more so than on their debut, the Elijah McLaughlin Ensemble showcase a holistic approach to music making that balances deep focus, startling originality, and sophisticated group interplay. ~ Thom Jurek