Ex Reverie | en

The most impressive band to come out of Greg and Jessica Weeks's Language of Stone repertoire so far is Ex Reverie. It's the spawn of Gillian Chadwick, the other half of Jessica Weeks's Woodwose.

Chadwick's singing on the band's debut, The Door into Summer, evokes a more sinister Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention), her voice rising like an incantation over the music and then falling back among the flora. Her tonal flexibility allows her to keep up with the fertile evolution of her suites (more than half the songs here exceed five minutes).

This evolution carries each song through a distinct musical history loosely rooted in parallel musical histories: that of the stringed instrument, of folk and rock music, and of her own experience as a listener and player. Listening through the accelerated eons of her songs is the equivalent of watching a lizard grow wings and feathers in real time. .