“Sometimes the world is magical,” Bex Burch says, describing the unexpected trip to Utrecht she took in 2021 that was the beginning tendrils of her beautiful debut, There is only love and fear. The twelve songs on this record are full of joy and tenderness with a heavy side of an insatiable exploratory spirit. Cadences move in multitudes because the rhythm of life is boundless, and through welcoming melodic passages and expressive timbres, Burch taps into the heart of it.
There’s a moment on the album, at the beginning of “You thought you were free?” when the all-too-familiar sound of a tornado siren echoes in the distance (I live and grew up in Oklahoma, after all). Burch jumps into the vortex head first, eventually landing on the other side where horns and cathartic rhythms spread light into every corner. It’s a moment of abundance and love borne from whispers of trepidation. There is only love and fear is such a special slice of music, small moments that, together, become all.
For this mix that Burch calls “Everday Experimental,” she says:
I feel like it’s a walk down some wonky weirdo street in my head. Where the characters are some kind of mix between labyrinth-esque fantasy and inner city Leeds in the 80’s. Where everyday life is full of these bold and beautiful sounds and rhythms all necessary and all seemingly separate but interfering and playing with each other.”
There is only love and fear is out now on International Anthem. Get it HERE.
Tracklist:
The Shaggs – My Pal Foot Foot
Sam Beste / Vernon Spring – Another
Sahel Sounds – Field Recordings from the Sahel
Polar Bear – Drunken Pharoah
Into The Light_ Music Of Korea V – Tajing
Jeremiah Chiu – For Voices
Baka Beyond – Water Drums 1
Jeff Parker – Excess Success
Laurie Anderson – Let X = X, It Tango
Bex Burch – unreleased Dawn blessing No. 42
Arthur Russell – Not Checking Up
Moondog – Chaconne In G
Phillip Corner – Metal Meditations
Ensemble 1604 – In C by Terry Riley
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