Ennet House

The second album from this fantastic experimental pop duo. Regular readers might remember that I posted their EP a while back here. Their first album, Little Room, is also now available for free from their bandcamp page.

As with their first album, Ennet House have crafted a selection of lush, textural and catchy tracks. However, Sensitive Bends is filled with perhaps an even greater psych-pop intensity. The album is designed to take you on a ‘visual journey’ across four suites, and these guys more than pull it off. The whole album ebbs and flows as each track segues fluidly into the next. The result is amazing and might just surprise you with such a dynamic tracklist. All in all, there’s a hell of a lot of great stuff to listen out for on Sensitive Bends. Highly recommended. - Polar Sunspots

Today we proudly present to you, an absolutely astounding new group that has, in an instant become one of my favorite musical groups. Straight out of northern Ohio, EHBS proudly presents Ennet House. If I appear to be gushing about todays band please don’t stop me, it has been such a long time since I’ve found a group that has really taken me like Ennet House did from the start.”Their sound is reminiscent of Animal Collective, but with a smooth, flowing fullness and a beat that makes it infectious and easy to listen to. It’s a sound so big it can’t quite be contained into individual songs, and each track seems to pour into the next as the album unfolds.”
Logan and I had a chance to sit down with the members of Ennet House, Luke Evans and Chris Passabet, to talk about who they are as well as their debut album “Little Room”.
Logan: So this is Logan and Cody with EHBS and we’re here talking with Ennet House (Luke Evans and Chris Passabet). And we’re gonna let them talk to you guys about their music and who they are.
Luke: We are an experimental, electronic, indie, what ever word you can throw at us, band. We’ve been playing together for about three years but this current incarnation of our collaboration has been around for about a year.
L: Weren’t you guys called Kids On Holiday be for this?
Chris: hah yeah. We were named Kids On Holiday after the Animal Collective song.
C: Great song off of a great album! You guys are from Port Clinton right?
Luke: Yeah, believe it or not hah. Nothing big really comes out of Port Clinton, Ohio. We are/were the Walleye capital of the world but that’s about it hah.
L: Well, now there’s you guys, so its looking better hah. How long have you guys been playing music?
Luke: I started playing guitar around age 12. I just picked up my dads old, brandless/nameless guitar and taught myself.
Chris: My dad also had a guitar and I never really played it until I met this girl when I was 11 years old and I wanted her to fall in love with me so desperately. I thought that everything a girl wants is a guy with a guitar, the rest doesn’t matter and from there I started writing and singing songs that a girl would want to have sung to her hah.
L: You write much better songs now hah
Chris: Oh yes hah much better.
C: You’re music has so much going on in it, who plays what in the band?
Luke: We basically both pretty much do everything that’s involved with the band. We both make drum loops, instrumental loops, we both sing, play guitar and play keyboard. We both do what’s necessary to get that image that’s in our heads out to create our sound.
L: Tell us a little bit about your writing process.
Luke: We don’t sit down with guitars and write songs together. We jam but thats not really how we write our songs.
Chris: We both bring our own part to the song while we’re recording it. The lyrics though, are done almost entirely before hand. Luke is the main lyricist in the band. I’ve only written two or three songs.
Luke: We basically think of things independently and then converge and add to each others ideas.
C: Who are some of your major influences? Who do you guys listen to regularly?
Luke: I’ve been listening to a lot of John Coltrane and other jazz lately. Not so much the tonal qualities of jazz but the improvisational qualities are really influential to our music.
Chris: I’m actually recently, really into hip-hop. Getting into things like Kanye West and Madvillain and I’m really into Flying Lotus.
C: YES! haha for one, Madvillain is one of my favorite MF Doom collabo albums but more importantly, Flying Lotus is one of my favorite musicians of all time. Especially his newest album Cosmogramma, is potentially the best album of 2010.
Luke: Yeah, his music is just insane. For the most part when I hear an album or song, I know what went into it and can get the gist of how it was done, but with FlyLo I have no idea what is going on hah
C: So you guys just put out an album titled “Little Room”. What brought this album about? What made you write certain songs and what does this album mean to you?
Chris: Well we had a lot of songs together and the songs that we really picked from were our earlier songs but it also revolved around this theme that is hard to describe.
Luke: The name came about because of the room we used to recored in. Which was a tiny little art studio in Chris’s house. BUt then I think the “Little Room” became more of a metaphor as well as a literal thing to us. TO us it means, where our music came from, literally and cognitively. Like Chris was saying, everyone has that one girl that they never really get over completely and its the feeling of that girl and the place that that girl puts you in a little, dark room. That’s just one of the “rooms” confining you, that you might not even notice at the time.
L: Where can people buy your album?
Luke: It’s on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, our Ennet House bandcamp, as well as some obscure sites here and there.
C: Well guys thanks for taking with us and allowing us to help promote you guys the best we can! We can’t wait to see you guys perform live again and we’re hoping that this will bring you a slightly bigger crowd. Talk to you guys again soon.
Chris: Thanks guys and lets hope so haha
Luke: Thanks!
I want to thank Luke and Chris again for their time and interest in the site! Ennet House is by far one of the most talented group of musicians we have featured here on EHBS. As I said before I don’t mean to rave about these guys but its hard not to do so when I see pure, raw talent forming in front of you. Their music is extremely unique and atmospheric, something almost anyone can get into. I hope you all enjoy todays Band of the Day and as always listen and enjoy! - Emo Hippie Bullshit

There is something so joyful, so ragged and wild and lush, about the music of Ennet House. They’re a new experimental music duo who have just released their debut album, Little Room, and who you absolutely must turn up your speakers and listen to.

The group has been awesome enough to share a number of their new tracks on Flock, and in just the past week we’ve listened to them over 700 times. Basically, we love them.

Their sound is reminiscent of Animal Collective, but with a smooth, flowing fullness and a beat that makes it infectious and easy to listen to. It’s a sound so big it can’t quite be contained into individual songs, and each track seems to pour into the next as the album unfolds. According to the group’s bandcamp page:

The work emulates the passing of summer to autumn with each song, culminating in the epic final track, Bottle Rocket.

And epic it truly is. It’s a glorious, cacophonous commotion, and it somehow manages to encapsulate the beautiful messiness of life *and* make me want to dance.

I think that’s what really makes Ennet House stand out —- there’s a lot of skill here, but there’s also a kind of heartfelt authenticity, an irreverence that flouts pretension, and a commitment to the pure joy of making a hell of a lot of noise.

There’s a life to it that can’t be faked or copied, and that’s what we try to find every day on Flock — music that truly moves us.

The entire album is streaming on bandcamp, and there’s a ton more information about them on their facebook and twitter. Check them out, and I guarantee you’ll thank us later! - Flock.fm