Whispers from Ancient Vessels by Damsel Elysium

Typically, we see nature as a beautiful realm to escape to, a place that exists outside our anthropogenic world that we can enter and leave as we please. As experimental artist Damsel Elysium points out with their new record Whispers from Ancient Vessels, however, we already exist within nature no matter how many symbolic walls we think we’ve put between ourselves and the wilderness. With a deep, rumbly sound that relies upon double bass and field recordings, this record reminds us just how all-encompassing nature can be, just how close we are to re-experiencing the natural world through increasingly common floods, storms, and heat waves. Wandering string lines, vocal leads, and piano riffs pop in and out of tune, emulating the undulations of nature, reminding us of the blind randomness of a world that can produce natural wonders alongside the most wildly cruel circumstances imaginable. Damsel Elysium opens us a line of communication to the earth, a one-way channel that sends us the frightening, overwhelming, and beautiful power of nature while leaving us with no path to complain, petition, or dispute.