Wendy Eisenberg says their new album, Bent Ring, is a meditation on work and love. Many of us have a complicated relationship with both as they push against each other and pull us apart emotionally and physically. Keeping a distance, trying to find the real amongst the many is an exhausting endeavor, but when those moments of serendipity come together it erases so much of the broken path it took to get there.
On the beguiling “Evening Song,” the latest single from Bent Ring, pensive closeness floats on the air. It’s clear Eisenberg loves their craft, though hesitation can’t help but linger as they sing, “Little windstorm, graceful saxophone. Don’t remember when I was alone. I can hardly bother with what I am known for,” across hopeful banjo plucks and skittering percussion. Eisenberg threw a wrench in any narrative by writing and recording Bent Ring entirely on tenor banjo rather than guitar. That unfamiliarity works and adds a wonderful fragileness to the songs, echoing a distant heaviness that always lurks. “What isn’t a stage?” they ask, sitting in the apex, wondering where to find the line between performance and living. Bent Ring is such a special record and is out November 5 on Dear Life.
Wendy Eisenberg will be playing these dates in support and celebration of Bent Ring:
11/5 @ Purgatory in Brooklyn
11/6 @ Common Beat Records in Philly
11/7 @ The Apohadion in Portland, ME
11/8 @ The Loading Dock in Littleton, NH
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