(Spinster)
Elizabeth LaPrelle of Anna & Elizabeth anchors the four-piece behind this comforting, intimate album of a cappella harmonies and Appalachian ballads
US four-piece Doran identify themselves as a freak folk collective exploring “tradition and innovation in song, myth and ceremony”. Anchoring them is singer/banjo player Elizabeth LaPrelle from brilliant duo Anna & Elizabeth, whose experimental approach to ancient songs has always augmented their raw power. She’s joined by ethnomusicologist Brian Dolphin, and Channing Showalter and Annie Schermer of the performance art group West of Roan.
For a month over winter, they went weapons-grade hippy together, recording in an attic, burying their bodies in leaves and doing tarot to see what weirdness emerged. And what did was this surprisingly comforting, intimate album, perfect for darkening nights when music can offer warmth. Consisting predominantly of original songs that nevertheless sound as if they have been around for centuries, Doran’s bedrock is strong a cappella harmonies influenced by eastern European chants and Appalachian ballads. The harmonies knit together so effortlessly you’d assume they were being delivered by siblings. The lyrics, however, hold deeper, stranger qualities, as in the beautiful Old Moon: “I am going where the birds praise the fallen sky / River cuts to the bone / It runs dark and it runs dry.”
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