Vio/Miré

When you stumble upon some great new music you weren’t expecting to find it is a great feeling. You can enjoy them all to yourself, until that point when they turn into Coldplay and then you are forced to hate them for being so popular.

Lets hope these two brilliant acts, both appearing on a very limited edition split single from Tip Top Recordings will stay nicely under the radar for a little while yet. So if you do like them, keep it to yourself for now (it can be our little secret).

Vio/Mire is Brendan Glasson and while there are shades of Bright Eyes behind his beautiful folk music, he is definitely a man with his own vision. - Flush The Fashion

Vio/Mire was unknown to me; the two previous records he’s put out will be secured. ‘Ivory Gull’ uses circular synthesised patterns within a Pacific Northwest aesthetic, the keys offer a steady drip of rain amongst the giant redwoods, his voice flitting between them like an elusive deer. The Postal Service delivering to the Unabomber is a way to portray this. The second track ‘Much That Could Be Found’ bring an acoustic guitar to the fore, electronics still circle providing texture, this time it’s more Lou Barlow than anything else.

The songs have a kind of cumulative hypnotic effect, the lyrics break through with startling images and the more you listen the deeper they become embedded. This is up there with the King Creosote / Jon Hopkins record and anyone listening to this will want to track down everything by these two performers. - Americana UK

Creative soul-mate, Brendan Glasson may “hail fom the ever-fertile Providence, Rhode Island”, but he sounds more attune to the stoic lyricism of Scandinavia. Under the strangely cryptic moniker of Vio/Mire, his two mini-opuses follow a abstract pathway that uses a twinkling, plonking and teardrop droplet effected backline of 8-bit keyboards, and eulogy atmospherics, to push us along a naturally poetic landscape. On the hopeful, nigh jaunty, ‘Ivory Gull’, Glasson uses his loquacious pallete to describe the scene, and the titles feathered protaganist: “The ivory gull too slow too large/ nears the iron hull of an ocean barge/ Or a simplified exspression/ a tired soldier’s final charge” – it looks like the gull in question bedecks the EP cover itself: a photo taken by the American photographer, Bethany Salvon (from her ‘The Beauty Of Decay’ series). Glasson goes on to eloquently place memorable lines before a scenic momentum gradually mourns, “The slow decay of land by sea” – heartening prose indeed. However the ethereal chiming tones, and ancestral harpsichord of ‘Much That Could Be Found’, prove enchanting and efficacious; taking you on a trip to another realm. Capturing the ambience of Eno and the tender, stirrimgs of Elliot Smith, his langour broody blanketd voice, dispenses keen observational thoughts, inspired by lovers escaping to the seclusion of some anonymous retreat that doesn’t end well: our narrator, despirited, turns his attentions to the, usually, inconsequential things that surround him to use as a metaphor, “It’s the way an old window pane/ gets thinner at the top/ Through mangled light/ like heavy rain/ the bids are eating trash again”. - God Is In The TV

Creative soul-mate, Brendan Glasson may “hail fom the ever-fertile Providence, Rhode Island”, but he sounds more attune to the stoic lyricism of Scandinavia. Under the strangely cryptic moniker of Vio/Mire, his two mini-opuses follow a abstract pathway that uses a twinkling, plonking and teardrop droplet effected backline of 8-bit keyboards, and eulogy atmospherics, to push us along a naturally poetic landscape. On the hopeful, nigh jaunty, ‘Ivory Gull’, Glasson uses his loquacious pallete to describe the scene, and the titles feathered protaganist: “The ivory gull too slow too large/ nears the iron hull of an ocean barge/ Or a simplified exspression/ a tired soldier’s final charge” – it looks like the gull in question bedecks the EP cover itself: a photo taken by the American photographer, Bethany Salvon (from her ‘The Beauty Of Decay’ series). Glasson goes on to eloquently place memorable lines before a scenic momentum gradually mourns, “The slow decay of land by sea” – heartening prose indeed. However the ethereal chiming tones, and ancestral harpsichord of ‘Much That Could Be Found’, prove enchanting and efficacious; taking you on a trip to another realm. Capturing the ambience of Eno and the tender, stirrimgs of Elliot Smith, his langour broody blanketd voice, dispenses keen observational thoughts, inspired by lovers escaping to the seclusion of some anonymous retreat that doesn’t end well: our narrator, despirited, turns his attentions to the, usually, inconsequential things that surround him to use as a metaphor, “It’s the way an old window pane/ gets thinner at the top/ Through mangled light/ like heavy rain/ the bids are eating trash again”. - God Is In The TV

t’s a very rare occurrence to stumble upon an artist whom you find to be both refreshing yet somehow like an old friend, in the stories they share and the emotions they stir up. Watching Rhode Island’s Brendan Glasson play under the moniker Vio/Miré on Wednesday night; supporting David Thomas Broughton; was just one of those occasions. Having never heard of him before I was astounded by the intensity and sincerity of his performance that had something of the tender and exposed emotional air of Conor Oberst about it. - Folk Radio UK

t’s a very rare occurrence to stumble upon an artist whom you find to be both refreshing yet somehow like an old friend, in the stories they share and the emotions they stir up. Watching Rhode Island’s Brendan Glasson play under the moniker Vio/Miré on Wednesday night; supporting David Thomas Broughton; was just one of those occasions. Having never heard of him before I was astounded by the intensity and sincerity of his performance that had something of the tender and exposed emotional air of Conor Oberst about it. - Folk Radio UK

I don't know what makes me the most melancholic, the songs or the songwriter. Brendan Glasson has got such a, ouch, sensitivity that you wonder how such treasures have managed to find their way to your ears without disappearing into the ether. To the point I could become almost believe in the existence of careful divinity somewhere above.


But no, from small links, to fragile faith, from shared feelings to just hazard and chance, his songs, like small boats on a stormy ocean have finally come alongside this side of my digital computer speakers and are now part of my most cherished music selection forever.

Is it an artwork for this album, a label, or is it too much to ask? I don't care of what people could say, here, in front of my word processor, I feel proud, I feel good, pretending, Brendan Glasson will be as precious this year, for me and for others as well, as Elliott Smith was fifteen years ago.

Except, I do believe he is more special, more underground, less easy to find, so far, less easy to approach. In fact, like the best and most disarming Elliott Smith album was in fact an obscure record written by someone else, aka "Orchard Street Sounds" by Minnetonka, it is too disarming and extremely moving to feel how much Vio/Miré is self- or just in-consciously preserving the treasures he writes and record, releasing CDRs or existing through mp3s shared or playing in living room instead of venues.

One minute inside the long and final "Worth Retelling" and the whole chillwave scene of these days seems useless and failing about what music should always been about, the unsaid, the suggested, the depth, the frustration, the little things from which grace finally arises.

Musically, Brendan Glasson sounds like he could be the cousin or the nephew of Mike talons' Talon and I'm sure Trouble Books would be glad to adopt him as one more contributor of their family.

I think I should write this review with tears and say nothing. Oh well, I can't explain, I feel totally empty listening to "January 2009". It is one of these very few and rare records, you can say about "it's different", not groundbreaking or utterly impressive, but you'll just admit to yourself you'll want to spend some time alone with this record, for the simple, and maybe somewhat selfish, pleasure of being sad and melancholic. But don't think it is a totally depressive album, instead, it is mostly joyful, the way Julie Doiron can be playful. In fact he could be the cousin or nephew of Julie Doiron too.

And "January 2009" doesn't sound like a lost backward-looking bedroom folk/pop album reminiscent of this forgotten lo-fi scene of the nineties, because, in fact, if most of his songwriting is indeed somewhat traditionally & intimately indie, you've got these subtle touches telling you, he is up to date with the most interesting part of the ambient scene of these days, and it wouldn't be a surprise to get a full ambient instrumental record coming from him some day. An instrumental song like "Writing in the dark" seems neglectfully forgotten between two others and it takes a few times listening to the full album before noticing how much this is totally unbelievable, hitting the same string Federico Durand struck with "Mi Pequeño Mundo De Papel".

Honestly, how can someone survive when "Shrinking Coasts" and "Appleseeds" are playing just one after the other. Two gems, two hits, two songs that make you put knees on the ground and listen religiously, humming to the melody, even when you thought such melodies were so passé, these days. You were wrong.

Recorded in Reykjavik at a friend's home studio (Alex Somers, from Parachutes and Jónsi & Alex) which is honestly probably the best environment for such a record, "January 2009" is for every second, from the first one to the last one, the very own production of Brendan Glasson. It is so shivering, beyond reasons.

One of the more comforting records I've heard recently to be honest. - Derives

Do places you go create songs in your head? I’m not asking if songs you listen to on your i-pod while you’re tuning yourself out all day seem to cinematically line up with your existence as you wander your city and stare at the street, but whether sometimes as you wander, the place surrounding you suddenly takes on a kind of rhythm and you begin to make up a song that you have never heard before? This song somehow seeming so appropriate to the environment of it’s spontaneous composer (that’s you friend) that it makes you smile out rightly to yourself until you run out of rhymes or almost get hit by a van or something? I ask you, oh cherished blog readers, because it happens to me every fucking day. I make songs about everything: Girls on the subway, homeless people on the street, guys with gel in their hair, girls with high heels and designer bags with dogs in them, the glass of closed storefronts, the tv screens on bus stops and taxi cabs, EVERYTHING! But living in New York leads to lots of songs about crazy things. Everything is big, explosive, loud, blatant, with one thing stepping in the way of another until I’ve forgotten what the hell I’m even talking about in the first place. The songs in Brendan Glasson of Vio/Mire’s head come from somewhere else entirely
.
Vio/Mire’s music is some of the purest, focused and instantly beautiful folkish (acoustic and sampled instruments and sounds) acts that I’ve come upon in quite a while. The first time that I sat down and listened to his newest album simply titled “January 2009? for the month of it’s release I’m assuming, I sat still for its entirety, trying to take in every word and new sound as they gracefully announced themselves. In fact, it’s so good that I’m totally confused as to why I’m the only person I know geeking out about it. I understand that it’s only available via his shows and the his small label’s website, but doesn’t word of mouth add up to anything anymore? Do we have to see things spelled out for us on the internet, proclaimed by digital demigods, whose mass quantity is so vast that it renders their words meaningless? Well if so, consider this your proclamation:
Here Ye Hear Ye: The entirety of the power that is invested in me (minorprogression.com) and I myself do hereby announce that you should be listening to this album. This applies to everyone of every age race gender or half gender. Children should be listening to it from old 80's boom boxes as they jump through rainbow hydrants in the street. Old ladies should listen to it from a speaker in their street facing apartment that plays into her ear as she sits within her stoop doorway and fans herself. And you, oh eager audiophiles should order one of Vio/Mires albums, so that as you walk down the street this summer, brand new headphones gleaming in the sunshine and refusing to let your head spin your own dying city’s songs, you can at least enjoy (as your stoned and sullen face pouts) some of the best sounds someone else’s head could conjure.
To convince you with this excellent interview with Brenden is worth your reading, I’ll first give you a comparison, even though it pains me to do so. There are some moments and elements in Vio/Mire’s sound that now and then reminds me of Sufjan Stevens. Not in a Jesus way, or in an over-cute conceptual way, but in an acoustical folk-baroque kind of way. There are other moments where I’m reminded of the Bon Iver album from a year or so ago, but these comparisons have more to do with it’s atmospheric and often angelic hushed quality. These suggestions add into each other, with both things continually moving in ways that keep Vio/Mire sounding like themselves and this expertly played balancing act is what excited me about them from the get go.
So now, after I fucked up and missed him play a show in Williamsburg last night, is at long freaking last,
a beautiful interview with Brenden, who has been so nice and patient about this whole thing going up that it makes me want to cry. - Minor Progression