Chamber Music by goldenstar

goldenstar is a band from Montreal. Chamber Music is their EP. It’s out on OST.

It takes them to the altar of a distinctly fraught strain of the North American musical canon, dancing in (and emerging from) the shadow of beloved forebears like Heatmiser, Sonic Youth, Sparklehorse — music that conjures intimacy, angst, slow-glowing guitars, ride cymbals that bathe and shimmer. It’s music that bears weight.

But this EP is no retread. Chamber Music’s palette is recognisable, but reconstituted through the idiosyncrasies of its songwriting: the unease on opener ‘Forget’ and the sleepwalking lamentation of ‘Spinning Out’, songs with a warmth that’s traced by an ever-present anxiety ebbing and bobbing like lantern light on ocean water.

‘Thread’ unspools a kind of shaky optimism, undercutting every swell of hope with a chord change that eases the realisation of its falseness. The downcast note it ends on is carried through to the EP’s second half, where the pace comes down to a hypnotic sway. ‘Belemen’ and ‘April 3’ are scenic views through tired, dark-circled eyes, twinges of memories felt but elusive, meaning that recedes further every time it’s recalled. Instrumental closer ‘I Blink and See Nothing’ concludes numbly, spiralling downwards like a stomach butterfly turned to a moth.

These are songs that speak to stillness and solitude and slow-burning pangs of regret: words unheard and half-thoughts left unspoken, a creeping sense that taking your own advice will only ever reveal the meaning it lacks. It’s about hollowness, it’s music that constructs a chamber in the familiar surroundings of a well-worn void. Come down.

musical project of Markus Stahl with collaborators Chris Steward, Zac MacArthur, Nick Castonguay, Meg Cule, and Jacob Sexsmith

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