TURNSOLE-Thieves
Big TakeOver Magazine issue 93
Having beguiled with 2021’s humbly yet supremely crafted orchestral pop masterwork Aprication, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist Eric Bates does an about-face on his follow-up fifth LP. You might wait all eight songs expecting his Dayton Philharmonic and Kalamazoo Symphony friends to finally spring from hiding—-c’mon, enough foolin’!—-but nyet: Thieves is a strictly guitar-bass-drums (and on the somber “Fading Blue” and “Lanterns,” piano) affair. Had he asked me—-like everyone does, ha ha—-I’d have counseled against this, negating as it does, a unique strength. Nevertheless—-Thieves is as good! Strong songs beat the heart/engine of enticing records, and songs visit Bates like daily poltergeists. Take “Thieves,” with its dramatic opening chord thrusting oxymoronically with direct subtlety, like Murmur R.E.M. meeting more vaporous New Model Army and Wipers—-only with Bates’s understated, gently insistent vocals. The as-insistent “Sit Tight” is another humming humdinger, its chord changes bouncing into sumptuous singsong melody. Don’t listen to anyone, Mr. Bates. You know what you’re doing.
-Jack Rabid
APRICATION
Big TakeOver magazine Issue 89
Ohio’s Eric Bates has long been a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist while playing in rock bands like the former Fillmore’s Therapy, and solo. But his fourth album leading Turnsole is a fine step up in its sublime orchestral pop splendor. More modest, gentle, and pretty, and with a hushing ambiance than, say, the Love/Left Banke/Zombies/Belle & Sebastian strain that designation entails, Bates begins with a burbling hum over light beats, friendly but with a small whiff of foreboding—or a quiet folk bed. Only then does his Orchestra colleagues (plus some Dayton Philharmonic and Kalamazoo Symphony members) pitch in, with bits of oboe (so sweet and snake-charmer slithering on “Ghosts”), piano, cello, harp (tingling over “Bonnie”), clarinet, and the like. Nothing is belabored, nothing over-crafted; Aprication breathes and broods, the melodies lingering in their languid loveliness, the slow unfolding of the strings playing against his humble voice like Colin Blunstone’s classic One Year. So sweet in its stillness, Aprication is a gentle joy. - Jack Rabid
TURNSOLE
BIG TAKEOVER ISSUE 78
Ohio's Eric Bates has been a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist for 20 years, but also moonlights in rock bands--see his pointed, punky 2007 self-titled LP with trio Fillmore's Therapy, or the crunchy,
Morrissey-esque pop of 2009's Eric R. Bates. It's that latter album's softer side that dominates on his new group's sparely-produced acoustic-folk debut (all of it performed by Bates, though he has a band for shows). On the lulling, lachrymose "Lonely Town," you can hear Leonard Cohen in his fragile, forlorn croon, while The Mozzer materializes on the nimble "Nothing to Lose." And the breezy "Our Mosaic " has a Joao Gilberto-inspired, jazz samba vibe. But Bates lo-fi, echoed bedroom recordings, aided by airy, buzzy synths and warmly patted drums, mostly evoke F.M. Cornog's East River Pipe. Like the elusive Cornog,his humble, hazy, and hesitant singing can also be heavenly and hypnotic. (turnsolemusic.com)
TURNSOLE-LITTLE BOYS AND BLACK DOGS
BIG TAKEOVER MAGAZINE ISSUE 86
I like concept LPs based on historical events; their third person perspectives on happenings from past eras can push songwriters out of established comfort zones. Take Ohio’s Eric Bates, also a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra violinist and ex-Fillmore’s Therapy frontman. The echoed, East River Pipe-evoking bedroom recordings on his one-man Turnsole’s self-titled, early 2016 debut are more defiantly delivered on this way different follow-up, which he describes as an “abstract look” at the life of France’s tragic teen Joan of Arc (1412-31). As Bates recounts on his website’s blog, he developed an obsession with Joan – also known as Jehanne or “Jehanette” – after watching Luc Besson’s 1999 film The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (which starred Milla Jovovich as Joan), and then reading two books about her: Mary Gordon’s Joan of Arc: A Life and the William Trask-translated Joan of Arc: In Her Own Words. Like Gordon’s book, he says this LP “has its own interpretations, inflections, [and] personal feelings, but most importantly it’s my own unique look at how and why Jehanette has made and still makes such an impression on me.”
Bates tells Joan’s story over nine songs, three of which – the submerged “The Voices,” the shivery “The Bridge,” and the small French child-sampled “Something is Amiss” – are short instrumental interludes. On Little’s two brisk, acoustic-fueled tunes, the taut title track and techno-tinged “Oil Lamp Girl,” he mixes The Sound’s post-punk urgency (Bates even resembles that band’s late Adrian Borland) with a folk-punk fire and a Morricone-esque mood, intensifying the story’s action. But the slower songs, imagining the inner voices that inspired the young heroine, affect the most. On the opening “Sunshine Girl,” accompanied only by bubbly synth burps, he drones like a divine deity, instructing Joan where to find the mysterious hidden sword (buried behind the altar at the church of Saint Catherine in the Loire Valley, per Joan’s 1431 trial testimony) that would embolden her to lead France to battle with England during the Hundred Years’ War. Elsewhere, the solemnly sung, Smiths “Asleep”-summoning piano dirges “Crucible” and “If You Love Me” unsettle like séance-raised spirits. Finally, the heartening “Hold it High” elicits a feeling of enlightenment, as if a reincarnated Joan is returning to her old village years later to reflect on her legacy. With its Interpol “NYC”-like ambience, “Hold” crowns the LP with an illuminating radiance.
-Mark Suppanz