I fear you, my darkness, the debut EP from the Minneapolis based group Lookbook is a study in contrasts and is a strangely beautiful album that has very dark undertones. The duo is comprised of former Digitata singer Maggie Morrison on vocals and Grant Cutler from various local bands doing the music. The sound and structure of the band remind me of a more electronic version of Beach House. The songs are simple musically with programmed drums often barely accompanied by hushed keyboards and swirling collages of noise. There are a few moments on the record where the dramatic nature of the songs becomes dangerously close to sounding like bad 1980’s ballads, but the album is an overall success. Both the music and the lyrics make this album a great winter album to put on in the late hours of the night. The whole mood of the album is morose and everything from the song titles to the vocal melodies are dramatic and create a quietly somber atmosphere.

The record starts out with over a minute of silence with only a quiet drum track clicking. This silence sets the mood for the entire album and leads into the first song, “Steal The Night,” which starts the album with a bang. A sparse drum beat is overlapped with a simple synth progression. The song builds into the chorus of Morrison repeating the mantra “We may not steal the night” until she finally ends it with a defeated sounding “but that’s OK.” The whole album has many moments of silence that make the album even more densely dramatic. One of the songs, “Pyramid”, is entirely instrumental and is a lushly gorgeous track that has an eerily loneliness to it; the other five songs all feature Morrison’s beautiful vocals. Where Digitata was more upbeat and warranted a much different vocal style, these songs really let her show her great singing and her sad and defeated lyrics. Other highlights of the album include the swirling second track, “My Darkness,” which after the period of silence after the first track, continues the sullen lyrical context and overtly dramatic musical arrangements. Like a few of the tracks, the song features multiple vocal tracks that add nicely to the feel of the song. The song, and album, is at its best during the chorus of this song where multiple vocal parts repeat the title of the album over and over with a pulsing keyboard line rolling behind them. Another strong track is the album closer “I’ve Seen This Coming,” which is a nice end to the EP, as it has the feeling of someone coming to terms with the crushing nature of their problem and has learned to simply accept their fate.

photo: Robert M. Luna

This was an album that I did not warm to immediately, although I did enjoy it on some levels on my first listen. The simple nature of the songs and the glum lyrical context grew on me after multiple listens and it became an album, like the Burial disc Untrue, that will have a place reserved in my stereo during certain times, namely after midnight on cold and lonely winter nights. The band has created an album that functions at its best when it is taken as one flowing piece of work compared with listening to it sporadically or as separate songs. The band has a really good starting point and I hope they can take the strong points of this album and find a way to make them work in the future on a full length LP.

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