EMA, Past Life Martyred Saints
Reviewed by: Chris Bosman
Any separation leaves a wound, be that physical separation of people or body parts, the emotional separation of a long distance relationship, or the personal separation that comes from two friends going to different colleges, two co-workers getting new jobs, or a band splitting up. In early 2010, the latter of those situations happened to Erika M. Anderson. Her mildly successful but viciously vibrant band Gowns posted the seventeen-minute monster “Stand and Encounter” to mark their end. Then Anderson left, presumably to California, and earlier this month released Past Life Martyred Saints. Past Life comes to us under Anderson’s initials, EMA. That moniker, and the sound of the album as a whole reflect the wounds of that separation.
On “Stand and Encounter,” despite Anderson’s trademark delivery, which somehow managed to come off as a laconic drawl, the track was undeniably in the moment. Swells of strings swarmed her, drums caterwauled off the walls, but none of it could obscure Anderson, standing tall in the middle of it. In contrast, Past Life is distant, with various sounds pushed back so far in the mix as if they’ve been borrowed from another location, and Anderson’s vocals pushed so far up to the front to seem completely disconnected.
On standout track “California,” squalls of static noise rise up like rumbling waves, with chords changing directions without warning like a mood swing, but each musical element is so obscured as to be indistinguishable, making Anderson’s blase delivery on the track even more telling. Similar is “Marked”’s degraded acoustic guitars, which buzz and burble, making the whole track seem unstable. And Anderson’s fragile vocal performance only highlights the effect. When the keyboards kick in two-thirds of the way through, the whole song begins falls in on itself, speeding up randomly, unable to follow its own rhythm. And everything about “Milkman” is overdriven to the nth degree, dulling the attack of its energetic rhythms. “Milkman” sounds like a woman being intentionally restrained, as if her intensity would be too strong to handle undistilled. With how powerful Anderson comes off even behind her walls, I’m almost inclined to agree.
Anderson’s lyrics alternate between stark repetition of poetic phrases and diary-entry earnest bouts of tumbling words, often on the same song. It comes off like a recitation of stream-of-consciousness diary entries. “Fuck California, you made me boring,” Anderson spits at the opening of “California,” and she goes on to admit, “I’m just 22 and I don’t mind dyin’,” to yell “California, you’ve corrupted our sexuality,” to ask “What’s it like to be small-town and gay?” Later, it devolves into Anderson mumbling about people she saw “carry the gun,” and loses none of its poignant honesty. On the scraping a cappella “Coda,” she blurts “These drugs are making me so sad” in three different voices, the dissonance reflecting the words and making it relatable instead of laughable. The same phrase shows up in the end of “Marked,” with Anderson’s quiet falsetto playing a foil to the song’s serious sentiments.
The goal of any musician is probably to find a way to outwardly communicate the swirling maelstrom of musical thoughts running through their heads. In that respect, Past Life Martyred Saints is a success. Even when the album stumbles, as it does on when the bookends “Grey Ship” and “Red Star” fail to justify their extended running times, it still reveals a lot about its creator. Erika M. Anderson is a woman who bears the marks of separation. Certainly the separation of her band. But Past Life seems to reveal something more profound: a separation of self. It’s the sound of someone trying to re-identify with their own self. Whether or not it succeeds, it’s an indelible document of the attempt.