Eli Van Sickel

5/5 Stars.

Six months after the release of Middle West, underground Midwestern folk musician Eli Van Sickel has returned with his follow-up, Nightlife. Stepping away slightly from the pure folk sound of his previous album, Nightlife shows a growing side to Eli’s work, featuring several well-placed traditional folk songs, new musical directions and new characters, all reveling in the highs and lows of the night life in Midwest, USA.

Opening with ‘Theme for a Street Light Pt. 1', the album begins with a two and a half minute instrumental piece that builds in volume as it progresses. It’s not exactly somber in its tone – it speaks of the promises of love and strange times awaiting those who come out at night – but there is also that haunting sound in the background, maybe telling the nite owls to be careful, there are things that go bump at the midnight hour.

Moving on from there is Eli’s rendition of the traditional folk song ‘Dirty Old Town’, recorded in a spacy lo-fi style, letting his voice and guitar echo throughout the song. While the song speaks of the town where he found his love, and of the happiness there, a dark undercurrent is also there, suggesting that while he may have found love, it’s still a dark and dangerous place.

‘Partners’, the first vocal original on this album, swings into a jocular mood, a jumpy guitar jam celebrating the people you meet by chance at bars and parties. Some of the lyrics sound a bit syrupy – “You’re the only one I ever want to kiss, ‘cause you’re my partner tonight” – but a lot of the lyrics show Eli’s playfulness.

Eli keeps the happy mood going with the oddly titled ‘RubFleshEnergyClubLoveDanceUs’, a four minute instrumental jaunt that has a hard dancing blues swing to it with an undertone of electronica, almost like he’s attempting to translate a bit of techno through his acoustic guitar. I’m not sure if that’s what he intended, but the jumping notes make for a good instrumental continuation of the love he found in the last song.

The first half of the album closes with another traditional folk cover, this time ‘The Wild Rover’, a jolly number about a libertine who spends his younger days in taverns with wild women who now decides to return to his hometown. He has given up his wild ways and is looking to make amends with the people who knew him. The tone is far more joyous than the previous folk cover on this album.

The second half begins with Eli’s most daring musical move to date, the six-minute ‘Normal Midnight’. There is no guitar here, no folk element; this is six minutes of droning electronic noise with Eli providing spoken word poetry over the music. He speaks of the beauty of the night, where there are endless possibilities in love and adventure, where the troubles of tomorrow seem a lifetime away and where the burdens of our lives float into the air and disappear into the moonlight. It’s a haunting track and a challenge to listen to, but I think it may be Eli’s most brilliant musical move to date.

‘Apology to the Wind’ is a brief instrumental interlude, a minute and forty five seconds of spacy guitar. The mood is turning a bit more somber as midnight has come and gone and the night is beginning to end.

‘The Parting Glass’ is another traditional folk cover, but it’s the most haunting one on the record. Recorded a cappella, Eli lets his voice ring out clearly as he asks for his one for the road, one last drink to the people he spent his night with and to the freedom he feels in such a world. With its echoing a cappella style, you can close your eyes and envision his voice bouncing along the bar as the barkeep says “last call”.

‘Fall Asleep (Dancing)’ is the last vocal original on here and it picks up the story where ‘Partners’ began as he falls asleep thinking of the girl he met and the fun times they shared in the midnight hour. But as the night closes, he sings her one last serenade: "Oh what a night it has been, oh what a night it’s been for you...I am dancing with you in the stars and on the moon."

The album ends proper with ‘Theme for a Street Light Pt. 2', a two and a half minute instrumental, finishing where it began; the horizon is coming, the night is over and the wild-eyed children of the evening have all gone to bed, waiting for the next time the moon rises so they can play again. But Eli has one more trick up his sleeve, his first album to feature a bonus track, this one another traditional folk cover, ‘Will Ye Go Lassie Go’, a joyous celebration of the spring coming and the invite to take his girl with him for new life and love amongst the blossoms in nature. While not in the continuity of the album, it’s a nice little touch, a good parting note to leave his listeners with.

Eli has delivered a masterpiece, a mix of traditional folk songs, his own originals, some unexpected experimental moments and a poet’s feel for the love and passion for the life under the moon. My advice is to pour yourself a good whiskey and raise a glass while listening to this record, celebrate the life and possibilities of life late at night with Eli’s newest album. - Polari Magazine

4/5 Stars.

Out of the Midwest wastelands of Terre Haute, IN, comes an album of stark and brutally honest folk from Eli Van Sickel. Middle West is the musician’s sixth release over the past four years and it’s easily his strongest yet. Recorded in an apartment with one mic, the album’s lo-fi production becomes almost another instrument to accompany his guitar and vocals. Eli paints a very realistic picture of what it is to live in the Midwest, the struggles, the triumphs and the dreams for something bigger and better. Opening with the brief instrumental ‘Maybe Someday (I)’, a somber minute and a half of guitar that sets the mood for album. While it’s tone may be stark, there’s a string of hopefulness through it that provides the ideal intro for this record. ‘Queen City’ kicks off the album in earnest, a portrait of Eli’s hometown, which could be Anywhere, Midwest. It’s small and traditional, with its own stories, its own heroes and villains, it ain’t the biggest, it ain’t the prettiest, but Eli still loves it, singing out “Queen City, shine your light on me”. Accompanied by his guitar and clapping, Eli knows that there is beauty and poetry in this no name, nowhere town.

And that’s the direction of the first half of the LP, Eli painting a picture of his surroundings, such as the third cut, ‘The Woman in White in the Wheat Field’, where he describes a beautiful barefoot young woman in the wheat field. He can’t decide if she’s real or if she’s just a vision of the beauty he sees in his hometown. His surroundings are further personified through ‘Rainy Road’, a lonely ballad about the rhythm of the rain singing along with his music, becoming another instrument in his life and ‘North Side and Neon’ where he rambles about the social disconnection he feels on Facebook, how his friends have become nothing but digital images, there’s no flesh and blood left. It’s an excellent, old-styled “talking blues” number. The masterpiece of the first half of the album is the seven-and-a-half minute ‘Prayer/Confession’, a folk blues ramble about his life where he is, his pining for a good home-cooked meal, some real true love and his desire to get away from the dumpy apartment he calls home. As he said “I’m in a fuck it mood tonight and the walls are coming down”. He opens his soul and lets himself speak freely without reservation with his ever-present guitar accompanying him and us through a journey of his mind. The short instrumental ‘Interlude’ leads into the second half of the album where Eli steps beyond his surroundings and sings of the characters in his hometown he knows and loves. ‘Hippy King’ is one of the most light-hearted numbers on the album, a jumpy blues song about a man described as, well the “hippy king”, a guy who always has the best dope and knows the best new bands. He ain’t too good at hacky sack, but he was good at everything else you need to do to be a good hippy. The King eventually leaves town, heading back to Colorado “where the hippies flock”, but Eli knows a new one will come to take his place. The next track brings the album back to a starker tone, ‘I Dreamed About You’, a classic about the long-told tale about the girl who got away. It’s a tale as old as time, written about and sang about a thousand times before, but Eli’s voice makes it his own. This ain’t no throw away cut, this stands strong with the rest. Undoubtedly, the strongest cut of the second half is ‘What I Really Want to Be When I Grow Up’, a track about growing old to see the continuing beauty of life. Eli looks forward to old age, to watch the leaves continue to fall and the seasons continuing to change. He doesn’t dread growing old, to him it’s a chance to keep seeing life and the new things that come with it. His slick-fingers on his guitar show their chops here with a dizzying array of chords and changes throughout the song. His joy for life is expressed no more fully than through this song. The second half closes just as the first half opens, with an instrumental, this one called ‘Maybe Someday (II)’. It’s two and a half minutes of Eli’s guitar, bringing a fitting, bluesy closer to this great album. Eli has delivered one of the best albums of American Midwestern music to come out in a long time. It’s beautiful and brutally honest in its depiction of life for those of us living there. He is a true poet with a guitar. - Polari Magazine