Caught in the Carousel

Ilya

All Around My Heart EP
Independent

Ilya

The E.P. is a strange creature. If the "B" side is the stepson of the LP, then the E.P. is the bastard-stepson who sometimes—as in those dark and twisted novels of the American south—ends up inheriting the patriarch's estate.

The E.P. had its heyday in the days of records and CDs. It had a "Limited Edition" feel to it that made you feel as if you had discovered—hidden inside some garage-sale purchase—the menu from the first dinner service on the Titanic (which you took to Antiques Roadshow to discover its value exceeding half-a-million dollars). Of course, some of the E.P.s came across as fake and cheap knockoffs meant to earn easy cash (usually for artists who didn't need it). But there were also a small contingency of brilliant ones: Altered Images' I Could Be Happy, The Cocteau Twins' Twinlights, Roxy Music's The High Road which contained a blistering and utterly seductive live version of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane," and The Pretenders' E.P. that came out between Pretenders I and II and that had such pronounced, arriviste tracks as "Message of Love," "Talk of the Town," and a smashing live version of "Precious." The cassette came in a fliptop cardboard container, which was the only pack of cigarettes I ever bought.

Add to this great list, Ilya's sumptuous four-track E.P., recorded live, in a mad rush of single takes.

The opening track, "Beautiful Day" starts out hillbilly and almost goofy. Is that a fiddle? Is it? And was I mistaken, or was the array of fiddlers just bumped offstage to make room for the Baptist choir? And how is Joanna Swan holding this all together? What a thrilling mess this song is. It's actually a song that seems more visual than audio. It has the look of a Target commercial that hasn't been made yet.

Remember during those good ol' Clinton days when we all thought Seal's "Kiss From a Rose" was troubadouring at its best? Me neither. But this E.P.'s title track is so soft and intricately harped that one feels the need to either move to—or at least look into getting a P.O. Box in—Sherwood Forest. Where Swan held the first song together by the sheer strength of her commanding voice (the riches of which I have written about ad nauseum), what the listener is awed by this time around is the gathered uncertainty of her beautiful and delicate voice. She has rarely sounded so vulnerable (check out the free download to hear more of this heartbreak, a track so emotionally charged that she decided against including it on the E.P.).

The next track, "In a Week" continues along the same madrigal path leading to the gorgeous, paradisiacal landscape that is "I Lied," a song whose truths exist in its contradictions. It is both vintage Ilya and wholly new. It is lush and spare. Coldly empty and eerily haunted. It is poetic and damning. In returning to lyrics, Ilya overcomes some of the missteps of their 2009 release Carving Heads on Cherry Stones. As a result we have lyrics that embrace the pastoral glow of an E.P. that has just arrived at its last inn at the last outpost. Safe under roof and sheets, Swan and Pullin move toward the fall of night and a darkness set down by Kate Bush years ago: "I said that love would set us free/I said love does not hide/But I lied/And that is why I could not see you." At the four minute mark the song devolves into the kind of loss of control (albeit masterfully handled) that reminds you why music is the drug that it is.

—Thomas Cooney