Wait. Didn’t plucky dream pop goddess Emily Reo just release a full length record? The answer is yes. And yet that means apparently very little as the now Los Angeles based Reo teamed up with those cool peeps over at Portals to film a session featuring an unreleased song “Spell”. It’s like they knew their just wasn’t enough awesome music in the world, even after the release of Reo’s debut full length Olive Juice and sought to rectify that by casting another of one Reo’s experimental pop gems into the digital ether.
One of my favorite things about Emily Reo is how no two song are even remotely the same. While Olive Juice was stitched together more by tonal rather than textural or thematic cohesiveness, “Spell” or at least this version of it populates an entirely different realm. There’s still Reo’s trademark vocal affecting pedal-play but it’s arrestingly sparse, beguiling in its sense of solitude. It’s not until a third of the way through the song that anything vaguely resembling accompaniment establishes itself – appearing like a safety net you were never quite sure was there. And even then – the accompaniment takes the shape of looped harmonies, rather than anything else. It’s an avalanche of beautiful moments stacking on top of each other one by one climaxing with Reo’s emotive howls.
Long story short, “Spell” is downright devastating in its beauty. Despite its complex construction, it comes off with effortless ease and blissful rawness. Don’t be surprised if you find you’ve suddenly got something in your eyes – it comes with the territory.
