Mothlite — The Flax of Reverie
The project is made Daniel O’Sullivan who handles voice, guitars and keys, Anti UUsimaki who's worked with the likes of Brian Eno, The Tindersticks and Barry Adamson, he handles Production, engineering and keys- . Along with help from Gilad Atzmon on saxophone and clarinet, who’s worked with the like of Robert Wyatt, The Blockheads,etc. Bassoonist Chloe Herrington(Crome Hoof), violist Sara Hubrich(Miasma & the carousel of Headless horse) and Drummer Jaime Gomez Arrelanao.
O’sullivan has a great voice that sits somewhere between Garm of Ulver rich monk like tones, Roger Walters and Jason Mendonca of Akercocke in his more dark harmonic English singing voice. The backing is centred main around slowly ‘n’ ominous beats – be it electronic or organic, Doomy and emotional charged piano melodies and wondering eerier bass lines. Which are all often swooned and darkened more by deep dark strings. Really the sound here is rich and dark and highly inviting, but sadly a lot of it feels a little inter changeable. They’ve got the sonic textures spot on, but there seems a few tracks here that relay on similar feeling and melodies.
So in summing-up a very promising debut that’s built and executed with a wonderful rich, dark and cinematic air that really is faultless. They just need to work a bit more on bring in more recognisable and distinctive melodies to their game plan, and I think we can well expect a classic album from this pair in the near dark and not too distant future.