You might recognize the name Elisa Ambrogio as a member of the Magik Markers, a prolific Connecticut-based band that toured with Sonic Youth and later released material on Thurston Moore’s label, Ecstatic Peace. Ambrogio recently released a solo album for stalwart indie label Drag City and is touring now in support of the effort.
The Immortalist features slow burning forays into songwriting with aesthetics both as weighty as a stone and as light as a feather. These songs have power and finesse. Ambrogio incorporates myriad textures: tinny and distorted, low and moaning, thick and crunchy, ethereal and ghostly. On the whole, The Immortalist serves as a blissful and frightening fever dream of sounds.
Nico and Broadcast might serve as points of reference, and I can’t help but mention like-minded contemporaries Carmen Villain and Cate Le Bon. However, none of that should imply that Ambrogio doesn’t stand on her own; these songs are bold and accomplished in their own right. Among other gems, the album’s lead track, “Superstitious,” is utterly transcendent. Something of a meditation on that moment of excited hope during falling in love before everything is unambiguously decided, the track’s pulsing percussion is like the soundtrack to our own fluttering heartbeat.
Stream that song below, order the record from Drag City here, and please, for the love of music, go see Elisa Ambrogio at Beerland this Sunday.
