The most intimate and intuitive sounding record of Xylouris White’s career is the one that certain events ensured they made in separate countries. Cretan lute player Giorgios Xylouris and New York-based drummer Jim White’s fifth effort is similar in a way to Bill Orcutt and Chris Corsano’s Made out of Sound in that the music was formed by each musician sending samples digitally to the other, in this case by way of producer and ‘third band member’ Guy Picciotto, former guitarist for Fugazi, who has been on board to mix and produce all five albums. With the previous four albums, the last being their 2019 Drag City debut, The Sisypheans, all being recorded in one room as an ‘inward facing triangle’, including Guy, this setup was as different as could be, but the result is easily their finest album.
The twelve tracks are all instrumental and mostly miniatures, with looser structures and a more abstracted mood being evoked. Songs like the beautifully melancholy Missing Heart almost feel unfinished, but instead of this giving the album a fragmented feel, it works surprisingly effectively in creating a patchwork and quite magical soundscape. The longest song by some distance is Memories and Souvenirs, an eerie and unnerving piece underpinned by Picciotto’s scratchy, uneasy violin, with shambolic percussion and Xylouris’s picked lute sounding (intentionally, I would presume) out of tune in places. It turns the signature heavily rhythmic sound of the band upside down and plays more as an experimental tune, a bold and successful move.
Seeing the Everyday is another chunkier song, but is more playful and brighter in tone than Memories, with White’s drumming coming in sporadically and sounding like he’s having fun with it. Xylouris leaves plenty of harmonic notes open on here too and plays light, repeated notes, giving the whole piece a sense of space and innocence, only occasionally threatened by lower lute notes.
Another highlight, although they are constantly shifting, is the final track Long Doll, another weird one, but with less of a sinister edge than Memories. Here the lute (if it is still a lute) sounds more like a banjo, being played in a free, improvised manner, giving the sound a metallic resonance and strange, angular cadences.
I absolutely love The Forest in Me; it smacks of confidence and creativity and is happy to shift expectations and deliver a sound so different to previous albums while keeping its core structure of lute and drums present. Each song surprises and leaves you wanting more, and at thirty minutes long, it is just too tempting to spin the thing again. I’ve enjoyed this duo (trio?) since Goats came along in 2014, but this short, sharp and dynamic project is the one I’ve been waiting for.
Order The Forest In Me via Bandcamp