The Low Branches – Sinking Rising (Church Hill)
When I hear the Low Branches, all I want to do is wrap my arms and thoughts around everything. Sinking, Rising is not an exception to this reaction. Christina Gleixner and Matt Klimas have contained everything that makes their brand of minimalist pop engaging and entrancing into one release. With layers of gentle guitars, bright atmospheres and lush melodies, it may be impossible to listen and not take something away.
The Low Branches – Sinking Rising (Church Hill)
When I hear the Low Branches, all I want to do is wrap my arms and thoughts around everything. Sinking, Rising is not an exception to this reaction. Christina Gleixner and Matt Klimas have contained everything that makes their brand of minimalist pop engaging and entrancing into one release. With layers of gentle guitars, bright atmospheres and lush melodies, it may be impossible to listen and not take something away.
With an overarching theme of the world and all of it’s elements at play, Gleixner finds success in putting more realization into a single phrase than most of her peers are capable of. With a slight flare of her voice, the listener is able to determine how much the conditions of the things out of our control can make us all so unfortunately vulnerable. In this vulnerability is the heart of this group. In many cases, a group unlike the Low Branches may decide to not embrace these ideas and emotions. What gives them a strong defining characteristic is that the Low Branches find more to gain in understanding and accepting how tiny we are in comparison to everything else. Their adherence to these ideas is what makes the group stand out. This is the main factor as to why everyone should pay attention to the Low Branches.
As far as the music is concerned, this record came out at the perfect time. It seems as if Klimas’s involvement with Snowy Owls, Louisiana Territory and Colloquial Orchestra has contributed to his matured musical approach. This is displayed throughout Sinking, Rising, as touches of dissonance and natural reverb unravel in each entry on this six-song collection.
Each entry stands on its own, but my affections are steered towards “Piscataway Creek” and “Unfold Your Hands Like A Map.” The former relies heavily on its dreamy tempo, cascaded by Gleixner’s modest poetic reverence for a moment stuck in time. When her voice finally meets Klimas’s during the refrain, the song halts to allow the focus to remain on their voices. It’s a breaking point that is executed wonderfully. It takes a moment away from the song to create an identity for the Low Branches. It’s a lovely song that expresses a longing for the memories of times where everything could be as simple as the sensation of one’s feet clinging to the wet earth. In the discomfort, there is still a tremendous amount of feeling to retain that can only be described as belonging to you.
“Unfold Your Hands Like A Map” is a testament to the amount of patience exuded in each track on Sinking, Rising. It’s a lover’s lament concerning how much we can hurt each other with the best of intentions. It takes the idea of the record and flips it around. In the little control we have over the surrounding elements, the things we do have control over can seem just as fleetingly out of our control as well. In its stark metaphors and its traveling verses, we are reminded that the humanity of the Low Branches is not removed from the consequences of our actions. In the hum of silence that surrounds the background of “Unfold Your Hands Like A Map,” we can see an interesting dissection. In a mind that is flooded with tension, there is still an emptiness that looms behind each figure of speech that we wish could reiterate more meaning than we are capable of.
Sinking, Rising demands to be listened to, on lonely evenings as well as evenings surrounded by our peers. It’s the tiresome notion that our dreams can only take us so far, but it may be all we have. When all is broken apart from the seam, there is a passion and a splendor that reveals itself in the Low Branches.
