Smoke Fairies - Carried In Sound (2023) [Official Digital Download]

Confined to a small townhouse during the early days of the pandemic, Katherine Blamire and Jessica Davies embraced the limitations of lockdown, which offered them the opportunity for complete self-sufficiency as artists. With the exception of contributions from viola player Neil Walsh, almost everything you hear on Smoke Fairies’s Carried in Sound was created at their kitchen table with a single microphone and an old laptop. That these lush songs sound as good as they do, using rhythm tracks performed with sub-rudimentary gear like garbage can lids, is a testament to Blamire and Davies’s myriad skills as musicians.

As on Smoke Fairies’s previous releases, a sense of a unified creative voice is immediately apparent from Blamire and Davies’s folk-style vocal harmonies. This time around, the guitars work in unison in much the same way, weaving a rich tapestry of sound. The playing and tones are both tastefully considered, with subtly blended reverb and delay serving as the primary colors. The guitars comprise much of the sounds we hear, while retaining an elusive quality that even an umbrella term like “blues-folk” can’t adequately cover.

Drums are absent from some songs on Carried in Sound, and only featured sporadically in others. One might want for a greater variety of rhythms—especially on an album consisting of only 10 tracks that are slow in tempo and generally unchanging in style. But the focus here is Smoke Fairies’s use of melody and harmony. The duo’s arrangements allow space for the melodies to unfurl, resulting in myriad moods that keep the album from feeling too same-y.

TRACKLIST

1. Smoke Fairies - Vague Ideas
2. Smoke Fairies - Vanishing Line
3. Smoke Fairies - Carried In Sound
4. Smoke Fairies - There Was A Hope
5. Smoke Fairies - Seek It With Me
6. Smoke Fairies - Sticks And Stones
7. Smoke Fairies - Part Of It All
8. Smoke Fairies - 2002
9. Smoke Fairies - Perseus
10. Smoke Fairies - Come To My Mind
11. Smoke Fairies - Seek It With Me (instrumental)



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