EP Review :: Dark Holler - "Born Warm" by Rachel Mallin

“In 2012 David Byrne published a book titled “How Music Works” in which he delves into Darwinian ideas of how music evolves and shifts based on the type of space in which it is created, what tools were accessible and used to make and capture it, but above all the human expressions and outcries in response to cultural undercurrents. We have descended into a time where it is difficult to avoid mentioning the effects of social distancing on our everyday lives. I often find myself returning to Byrne’s notion that music and art adapt to the development of human behavior and how an artist achieves their best work in isolation: a place where there is no threat to one’s vulnerability.

Born Warm is the debut EP of Dark Holler and was performed and recorded in late winter by Claire Delaney in the recesses of her dimly lit attic.

The EP includes four tracks titled:

1) Floodplains

2) Splinter

3) Attention

4) Nineteen

Lyrically and instrumentally, each song reads like a meditation on the human condition and how it changes; acting and reacting to the environment in which it occurs and the people who affect it. “Floodplains” introduces us to Delaney’s retelling of travel-bound characters finding themselves landlocked by obstacles both emotional and elemental. Delaney’s vocals are soft and sympathetic, exhibiting an intimate likeness to artists like Weyes Blood, but she distinguishes herself in emotional capacity as it becomes clear she is not afraid of turning the dial up.

In attics, basements, and unfinished rooms you can see the bones, muscles, and organs of a house. Exposed insulation jutting out between plywood pillars, footprints in small mountains of sawdust accumulation. “Splinter” is a track of fixation-bred madness, and the human obsession of removing or obscuring what does not match, what is not compatible, from the environment of the body. While we build walls to protect us from intrusions of the natural world, the third track on Born Warm titled “Attention” embraces the sonic cracks in the concrete by amplifying the outdoor songs of finches and sparrows atop a muted piano melody. It stands alone as a lyric-less bridge to the final song “Nineteen”. “Nineteen” shines as the most honest and vulnerable piece, but bears a dissonant resemblance to classic nursery rhymes; lullaby-esque in every tonal quality, yet showing teeth, trauma, and the resilience of the human spirit in its message.

One might say the strongest quality of Born Warm is its affinity for gradually escalating and de-escalating dynamics; as natural as the rawness of private conversations gone hostile and the deep breaths taken between understandings and assumptions. As the texture of instruments slowly morph from a soft glow into sharp and distorted declarations, the absence of compromise becomes obvious. While isolation is present in every song, the color of it changes and inevitably cycles back into its original form. While this experience of loneliness doesn’t necessarily educate us so much about the world outside, or even the world inside, it has a way of surprising us with our ability to weather it. “

Review by :: Rachel Mallin

Manor Team Member & Staff Writer

Manor Records gives 100% of article author rights to Rachel Mallin.