There’s a cool music scene in Phoenix and locals Dorsten have made quite a name for themselves. Their new EP titled To the River, power duo and siblings Dorsten want to highlight how alive and well folk remains in the city of angels.
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Although written as a progressive outing with many of the same trappings one would expect out of something akin to a full-length album, this extended play has the efficient setup of an introductory disc and not once tries to overstate its artistic depth with a lot of bells and whistles best left on the sidelines of any recording.
The concept doesn’t dictate structure in this record, but instead the other way around – at least more often than not. Because it’s quite obvious that Dorsten cares about harmonies ala the sort we find in “My Sweetheart” – there’s never a moment where they aren’t putting the melodic might at the forefront of the mix next to their superphysical presence of tempo, the latter of which is generated by the mix as much as it is the music itself. Alex Dorsten’s beats match up well with the seductive accents his sister Sophie is putting down at the head of the arrangement, and as much as they connect in the groove, they always sound like they’re competing for the lion’s share of our affections.
You won’t find a lot of the common ego-stroking that goes into making some modern alternative folk records in this piece, but instead a dedication to aesthetics that ensures unneeded virtuosities never come into the fold. Who needs an elaborate solo when you’ve got the grounded rhythm of a song like “To the River” to cling to? Quite frankly, I don’t know why there aren’t more progressive folk bands trying to make their music this way; it’s clean, straight-up, and puts all of the emphasis squarely on musicianship.
The fluidity of this five-part tracklist is amazing, especially being that we’re listening to an extended play rather than a studio album, and at no point does any of this material sound like an abbreviation of what we would hear out of Dorsten in an LP setting. They’re giving us a lot of guts in the likes of “Chewing Gum” and “Vernazza,” and it’s hard for me to imagine their melodic presence being nearly as spellbinding.
To the River feels like a sneak preview of what this band is going to be all about in the years to come, and I hope they don’t rush anything moving forward with their next release. This is the very antithesis of the thoughtless alternative folk that seemed to take the last remaining life out of the genre as the 2000s came around and mainstream tastes in guitar-oriented music began to shift significantly, and if this band can take this style and run with it a little further outside of the familiar, they’re going to be sitting on a sound that a lot of fans will be eager to embrace.
Garth Thomas