Sylvan Esso, Indigo De Souza make for unexpectedly perfect pairing
Sylvan Esso. // photo by Jack Howland
Ahead of her electrifying 45-minute set at The Midland on Friday night, Indigo De Souza told The Pitch this tour opening for dancehall behemoths Sylvan Esso has made for an amusing combination. Her music is so dark—her first two albums, especially, were like embittered, head-banging cries into the void—it could be jarring for someone prepared to dance to whimsical ambient beats and whispered chants. Would the hipsters in black mesh, platform heels and glittering neon sequins be OK?
Indigo De Souza. // photo by Jack Howland
The answer is fuck yes, which of course was going to be the case. Though Indigo De Souza’s music can be defined by its hard-edge, it’s also really fun to listen to, stuffed with infectious hooks and relatable observations and a feeling that everything will be OK if we can just scream and be together. Her latest album, All of This Will End, her third proper release, is her brightest and most optimistic, propelled by simple melodies that feel like indie classics, and lines destined to be etched into the hearts of angsty teens. That ramshackle, garage-band energy came out on the Midland stage, underneath the glitzy crystal chandelier, the ornately carved gold ceiling. The 26-year-old musician, well aware of her image as one of rock’s pre-eminent doom-and-gloom-ers, looked like she was having honest-to-god fun. Her lips curled into a smile, her eyes closed, before she belted the crushingly relatable “Parking Lot” line, “And I’m not sure what’s wrong with me, but it’s probably just hard to be a person feeling anything.”
Songs like “Parking Lot,” a surprisingly light-on-its-feet jam about the struggle of achieving a healthy work-life balance, and “Wasting Your Time,” which is like a fuck you to fuck-boys against a hard-charging front of guitars, caused dance circles to crop up all over the crowd. De Souza wore black boots, oversized green-and-yellow sweatpants, a cutoff shirt emblazoned with what looked like her own sketches, a pair of dangling star-shaped earrings. Her hair was short and mop-ish like Joan Jett—a major change from the long locks of recent music videos. Someone behind me shouted, “Nice haircut!”
De Souza was a good fit for the Sylvan Esso show not only because her music is more joyous than its given credit for, but because Sylvan Esso is moodier and more mysterious than its danceable reputation suggests. Yes, contained in their work are all the hallmarks of modern EDM: the thundering bass, the wobbly synth lines, the coo-ing falsetto of singer Amelia Meath gliding over Nick Sanborn’s massive soundscapes. There’s also something a little strange about their compositions — the sounds of metallic pings, of electric currents rising and falling. Their most recent album, No Rules Sandy, came out of a whirlwind, weeks-long recording retreat in Los Angeles; they said it was the fastest they ever wrote a record. The tracks, as a result, are a little simpler, a little less flashy, than early hits like “Hey Mami” and “Coffee.”
Sylvan Esso. // photo by Jack Howland
Meath and Sanborn formed Sylvan Esso back in 2014. She was a member of the folk singing trio Mountain Man; he was a producer and the bassist of Megafaun, a psychedelic band created by former members of DeYarmond Edison who are not named Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver. After she asked him to take a crack at remixing her Mountain Man song “Play it Right,” he turned a lush acapella lullaby into a jittery, soaring banger; the rest was history. They hit pause on their other projects to focus on Sylvan Esso, and even began dating, tying the knot in 2016. Like De Souza, they hail from North Carolina, its Appalachian influence apparent on their first musical efforts.
But on Friday night, there was little folksiness to be heard in their set, outside of the moment at the end of the show when Dearborn strummed an acoustic guitar and Meath sang the No Rules Sandy closer “Coming Back to You.”
There were, however, expensive light displays, extended dance breaks and a sense of carefree marital fun.
Sylvan Esso. // photo by Jack Howland
‘Pop music make me go insane’
If you check out a picture of Sylvan Esso from several years ago, like this one in the New York Times, they look like they’re part of an entirely different project. His hair is short and tidy, and he wears a gray flannel T-shirt; she’s looking off in the distance in a denim jacket. They have the placid energy of Simon & Garfunkel.
When they took the Midland stage — everything dark except flashing white lights—Meath was wearing a black jacket over black leather shorts, a black leather crop-top and black boots, her formerly brunette hair platinum blonde. Sanborn was like the quintessential under-dressed DJ, standing behind an array of cords and computers in sweatpants and a tee-shirt that were two times too big. His hair was long, shaggy.
They opened with a performance of “Alarm” off No Rules Sandy, which builds from a funny little guitar noise into a techno beast with zig-zagging synths and overlapping vocals. As the beat kicked in and the song took off, a shimmering silver curtain unfurled behind Meath and Sanborn. If any of their hardcore fans weren’t already dancing, it seemed they were now.
The lights — there were several vertical bars that flashed in sync — turned purple, and Meath began singing the lyrics to, “Train,” off of “Free Love.” One of the lines felt especially appropriate, and captured the vibe of their entire performance: “Nothing in my brain/Pop music make me go insane/Four on the floor.”
The next song, “Dress,” carried through on this promise with its brooding electronic swagger, and with Meath’s freewheeling, improvisational dancing. She moved across the stage with her own loose choreography, popping and locking and side-gliding and power-posing.
“Thank you so much for coming to our show,” Meath said after the song. “What a joy it is to be a part of it.”
Sylvan Esso. // photo by Jack Howland
Though Sanborn dutifully played the songs from behind his machines, various cords spilling onto the ground, Meath was the real highlight. Her voice — soft and lilting, and then, suddenly, powerful — sounded like it does on the duo’s recordings; her playfulness on stage transferred to the crowd. During “Ferris Wheel,” a clear favorite of the crowd, she pantomimed playing the flute using the mic. Her performance of the 2017 hit “Die Young” was aided by impressive eye-high kicks. She also wowed the crowd with one big wardrobe change, leaving the stage in her leather and returning in what looked like a gigantic, multi-colored loofah.
Still, in spite of the slick, colorful presentations of these songs, you could imagine how much more pleasurable they would sound with backing musicians. Sanborn pulled out a bass exactly once, for less than 30 seconds, to play the solo lick from “Didn’t Care.” What if the band had brought a pianist, a bassist and a drummer, like they did recently for their live Electric Lady sessions? Real instruments might have lended Sanborn’s compositions a little more authentic texture.
Before they left the stage, Meath and Sanborn shouted out Indigo De Souza, shaking their heads in what seemed to be genuine amazement at the talent of their opening act.
It was hard, at for this audience member, to deny that the best, most thrilling, most soul-affirming music of the night came in the first 45 minutes.
Indigo De Souza. // photo by Jack Howland
‘I’m called Indigo De Souza — that’s my name’
Introducing her band, De Souza seemed a little nervous, a little awkward, completely sincere.
“We’re called Indigo De Souza,” she said, before pausing and thinking for a second. “I always accidentally say that, but I’m called Indigo De Souza — that’s my name.”
She shouted out her guitarist Maddie Shuler, drummer Avery Sullivan and bassist Landon George. Performing with them throughout her shortened set, she seemed at ease, jamming and bobbing her head, singing notes that cascaded and then crashed with a half-grin on her face. It’s hard to know exactly what it felt like to be on that historic stage; before the show, De Souza said she was having a hard time with her mental health. That, she told me, has made these new, more hopeful songs feel a little darker.
“The Water,” maybe the most upbeat song on All of This Will End, and in her catalogue catalogue, almost feels like a 2010-era Best Coast bop with its summer-on-the-water imagery and bright, fuzzy guitars. When I told this to De Souza last week, however, she said she was not familiar with the still-going-strong indie band. She added that “The Water” is not one many fans have mentioned directly to her; lead single “Smog” has generated much more attention.
She didn’t play “Smog” on Friday, but did do “The Water.” Though this decision almost certainly had nothing to do with me, it did fill me with immense happiness to hear De Souza play one of the happier song she’s ever written, and my favorite off her new album.
Who says De Souza can’t do joy?
