In late February, prolific Louisville visual and music artist Reuben Sawyer (Hollow Sunshine, Blood Bright Star) delivered the sparse, jangly and touchingly downcast self titled debut album belonging to his new lo-fi bedroom project Anytime Cowboy. Now he unfurls Sparrow’s Tongue, the new EP from The Column, his other solo endeavour that also continues his exploration of life on the lighter side of music’s dark arts .
The EP follows up 2018’s The Oracle, the debut album which kickstarted the pop inspired, darkwave infused project. That marked Sawyer’s solo debut bow as a vocalist founding The Column with the intention of fulfilling his fascination with the duality created when engaging intensely dark subjects with lighter sonic hues.
On Sparrows Tongue, Sawyer has not so much narrowed the extremities but simultaneously moved them to a place more thematically circumspect but rhythmically spacious. There through the upbeat murk, an elastic pop sensibility is combined with minimalist post punk to accompany Sawyer’s exploration of the morose emptiness and acute lack of fulfilment living in a post-industrial society. A society that promises so much but delivers so little. One dedicated at its centre to the nothingness of endless accumulation.
While the melodiously spiky EP opener ‘Laughing Bells’ is an immediate indicator of intentions, it’s the closing track ‘Modern Hysteria’ with its wistful musings and its eminently danceable groove that is most pointed of Sawyer’s change in approach. Listen to that below where it is accompanied by the video to the Black Marblesque ‘Tastes The Same’, the EP’s lead single from February. Sparrows Tongue is out now digitally and on vinyl here via Funeral Party Records. You can listen to ‘Laughing Bells’ here as it head up our 30 track New Post Punk Darkwave Coldwave Shoegaze & Post Rock Playlist on Spotify.
Modern Hysteria
The Column (USA)
From the EP, ‘Sparrows Tongue’, Funeral Party Records
Audio Stream
Tastes The Same
The Column (USA)
From the EP, ‘Sparrows Tongue’, Funeral Party Records
Audio Stream
Official Video