By Keith Walsh
In a sonically pleasing album of distorted and rattling guitars, pounding drums, fuzzy bass and dramatic vocals, on Living Waters, E tells stories about societal corruption with a deeply emotional creative response. It’s a sound that perfectly portrays the human reaction to the shocks and chronic stress of daily life. The trio of Thalia Zedek (playing a modified guitar doubled by an octave pedal, vocals), Jason Sidney Sanford (guitar, electronic devices, vocals) and Ernie Kim (drums, vocals, saxophone) are all too eager to experiment with their lineup of traditional instruments, and their daring sound represents what is perhaps the sanest response to a world that often fails to make sense.

Recorded at Rare Signals Studio in Cambridge, Massachusetts and produced by Andy Hong of Tape Op, Living Waters was mastered by Ondřej Ježek at JáMOR Studio, Prague. That seems like an odd choice until you realize that a sound this unique requires very specific inputs. The album is filled with interesting melodic voicings, defiant lyrical messages, and an approach that pushes it into near goth territory at times.

The first track, “Fully Remote” starts off with a bit of noise rock, but becomes catchy as a highly eccentric distorted guitar sound meets the drums in a pounding rhythm, while Sanford’s vocals relate a story of resilience and creativity in the midst of oppression, with lyrical and tonal anguish. With transcendent lyrics, “Jumprope” features more eccentric guitar and an unusual riff, which combined with Kim’s vocals and his powerful imagery, make for an endearing tune, written about the passing of his aunt.

“We’re still pretty melodic –we’re ‘noise rock’ as opposed to ‘experimental.’ Our stuff is not that experimental, but it’s rearranging all the pieces of different types of rock in kind of a new way.”

Thalia Zedek of E

“Null” is quirky post punk rocker, highlighting Ernie Kim’s precise drums, with their excellent production which I imagine is processed by the Transatlantic Plate Reverb. There’s elements of new wave, but the more abrasive guitar sounds and thematic darkness play against that. Vocally, there’s some goth inflections as well. “Clarion” starts off with some more highly unique vocals and frantic vocals. Zedek’s guitar has an extra serving of fuzz on it, while Sanford’s guitar is quick and energetic, along with the precise beats by Kim. With poetic imagery, “Clarion” refers to the search of guidance through the ordeals presented by a world in change:

“Sand turns to broken glass/
Sun burns the mountain pass/
Wind whips a stinging lash/
Guide us to find a path”
From ‘Clarion’ by E

As a protest against authoritarianism, “Names Upon A List” gets a bit harder, with dense walls of guitar and riffing, which drop out in the verses to highlight the vocals. “Deep Swerve” is an odd experimental tune, with electronic drum sounds, organic stick sounds, and the undulating bass of Zedek’s guitar, which turns to oscillations due to a glitch from the octave pedal. It’s the kind of experimentation that informs the entire work, though in this case it’s much more pronounced as traditional rock structures and melodies are set aside.  

In an Zoom interview today, Zedek explained: “We’re still pretty melodic –we’re ‘noise rock’ as opposed to ‘experimental.’ Our stuff is not, in the songs that experimental, but it’s rearranging all the pieces of different types of rock in kind of a new way.” (My complete interview with E will be at PopularCultureBeat.com shortly).

I asked guitarist/vocalist Jason Sidney Sanford what discussions are going on about sound creation during practice sessions that result in the deliberately minimal sound. “Sometimes Thalia tells me I’m playing the wrong thing, or playing too much,” he told me. ”But mostly it’s pretty intuitive. We just jump in. The discussion is not about the melody so much, I think. There’s a lot of discussion about composition. We spend a lot of time putting things together and taking them apart, and trying them in different permutations, with any given song to get it right.”

The title track “Living Waters” starts off with a proud and majestic guitar progression against the drone of another electric guitar and the bass guitar, and the effect is psychedelic. I asked the band about this phrase, which Zedek explained was originally the title of a song that became the album title. “Ernie came up with that title,” she told me. ”It was a title for the song, originally. When we were searching for an album title, we decided that we like it for the whole thing.”

Kim, who sings lead vocals on the track, explained the title resulted from his naming process during the compositional phases. “It’s kind of mistaken is some ways,” he said. “I was trying to think of this Ben Katchor cartoon, where it was talking about ‘the drink of life.’” During a jam with Zedek and Sanford, Kim tells me “it had this kind of flowing, moving feeling to it.—there was something about it, waters flowing underground. And the ‘Living Waters’ song came after that. It just kind of came back to that.” The tune is a kind of psychedelic metaphor for the way all of us – particularly those of us who are artists –navigate our paths through life. Kim’s wild, echoing saxophone in the middle then a guitar solo push the strangeness into sublime beauty.

“Ash” calls back to the experimental weirdness of “Deep Swerve,” with electronic sounds that fall between drum and synth bass wobble, then comes a rhythmic motif with two guitar figures and drums. It’s kind of a post-apocalyptic commentary on the state of humanity after a disaster. The songs builds into a mélange with noisy layers of searing guitars, with the lead vocals depicting social horrors that we can only pray will remain imaginary.

“Postperfect Conditional” relies on a throbbing drum beat, subtle bass and staccato guitars, with lyrics that play upon anxieties around extinction. “Gain Of Function,” like the research it references, is archly dark.

The dramatic vocal performances on Living Waters, combined with innovative guitar technique, precise drum work and exemplary signal processing and production throughout, stand as strong statements about the positivity of musical creation in the face of despair. The addition of Kim in 2022 on drums, saxophone and vocals add powerfully creative elements to the ten year collaboration between Zedek and Sanford. Living Waters is a beautifully unique work representing the sound of humans and technology pushed close to their breaking points but resisting with lyrical and melodic expressions that are completely original.

(Featured image by Barreteau Lapasin)

Starting in June, E will embark on an extensive tour of Europe with beginning and ending with dates in the United Eastern U.S. Info on tour dates is on their official website.

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