The Dove is the latest single from Holy Matter’s upcoming album Beauty Looking Back and is another memory-tugging work of nostalgic pastoralism that sways in undulating waves that gently weave their way. Built around a simply plucked classical guitar pattern, it’s an enchanting minute and a half that like much of Holy Matter’s work feels oddly visual in its sonic conjuring – like a curious interlude in some sixties folk-horror flick.
Leanna Kaiser as ever paints a sinuous, celestial melody that is rich in vintage ambiguity – something enveloped further by the subtle use of warm, mellotron-evoking keys and reverb drenched flutes. That voice really takes on a delicacy and beauty that feels almost choral in tone here- as if she’s calling us all down to some hidden place of ritual, with David Glasebrook‘s production hand as poised and deft as ever.
Its abrupt ending brings the medievalist march to a sudden conclusion and the empty space remaining shivers like an after image. And there are images aplenty in its brief existence – which coalesce in feverish, magical fragments. It’s all part of a bigger world being painted here by Kaiser but one that stands alone too as a brief moment of tranquil, beguiling beauty, however fragmentary it may be.
The suitably surreal music video that accompanies the track, directed by Yun Chen, is also well worth checking out, adding as it does further mind-expanding atmospheres to the whole thing. The album is out in October – until then The Dove is another charming.
Written by M.A Welsh (Misophone)
Music | Misophone (bandcamp.com)
