Bodies of Water started in David and Meredith’s closet. They were newly married and lived in a very small house. The closet was the only place to put the computer that they used to record songs. They were content doing this for a while but eventually decided to send these songs out into the world. The first step was to form a musical group. Meredith had never played a piano before but she was willing to give it a shot. She had known Kyle for a decade or so and he decided to try playing the bass. Jessie was a new friend from Arizona who was making a big splash in LA. They all thought that since she was a gifted dancer she would make a good drummer, and so Jessie learned to drum.
In the ensuing years, the four have learned to deftly spin those threads which inevitably weave their way through every Bodies of Water song: ebullient group singing, melodic invention, thundering polyrhythms, and sublime dramatic tension.
‘Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink’ is their first full-length record, and the first release from the band’s own Thousand Tongues label. The songs stray from verse-chorus structure but are engaging and memorably crafted, drawing on an admixture of traditions; the transcendent intensity of gospel, brutish gusto of punk rocking, earnest idiosyncrasy of American folk, sonic inclusiveness of tropicalia, planned jamming of prog, and the sincere bombast of musical theatre. These songs can be likened to a sort of emotional topiary; an unruly living mess lent its shape by the psychic framework around which it grows.
The language of these songs obliquely references what is the overarching concern of the record; the irreconcilable tension between the physical and metaphysical worlds and the human creature that stands precariously astride the two, being pulled by forces indistinguishable from desire and pushed by compulsions masquerading as emotions.
Since its inception Bodies of Water have added an auxiliary corps of musicians and when playing in L.A. their ranks can swell to as many as 11; hitting, blaring, strumming and bowing away. The four core members’ vocal synchronicity remains the group’s hallmark. Their calls, responses, shouts and harmonies ride above and around a retaining wall of sound in a fleeting burst of neo-tent revival immediacy.
Bodies of Water aren’t providing a soundtrack for catharsis, surrounding the listener with “good feelings” or “bad feelings.” They only hope to give encouragement in the lone struggle against adversity, to proffer up a thing to be internalized (and evolve therein) or die. Comfort engenders complacency and neglect, while dissatisfaction/ingratitude begets cruelty and self-absorption.
