ninehertz

Chicaloyoh is Alice Dourlen, an artist who creates organic and natural work and Evaporation of Widows seems like an excellent place to begin to absorb her pastoral charm.

Not unlike Six Organs of Admittance, Alice creates a droning loop of quiet guitar drone and humming to build an atmosphere before improvising or staking out her delicate and beautiful soundscapes over. It's of the wild for sure, but there's also a strong-willed insistence at play here too, the songs head towards some kind of summit, rather than wandering aimlessly to infinite ends.

Your End features her ethereal vocals, smooth and velvety but with an air of menace from some lazily-plucked notes and slow cymbal shimmering backing them up. It sounds like a song of longing, of knowing what you want but not being able to grab it with any sort of grip. There's also some piercing keys that take over for a while before the vocals creep back in. It's not as stark as this description suggests but there's certainly a bleak and listless feeling being expressed here.

From the pictures she has available, Alice seems to be able to replicate this sound live too, a simple guitar/sampler/microphone setup so what you're getting here is no bedroom noise fiddler, rather a live artist able to transcend the normality of solo singer/songwriter and the limitations that brings. Alice is also an artist, having a tumblr full of weird and wonderful photography and paintings that will give you an idea of her background. The tape this arrives on could come in one of three different colours and complete with a painting too, intriguing if not for everyone.