Rivulets - yearlings (2011)

There are five years between "You are my home" (2006) and "We"re fucked" (2011) so it doesn't come as a surprise that a few songs were written and then lost inbetween.

But not irremediably and at the occasion of a tour, six of these songs see the light of the day as a tour CD.

They were recorded live to four-track cassette in Bloomington, Indiana. These are intimate lo-fi bedroom songs and not much more, just Nathan Amundson on his own, alone with his guitar, with the record button on.

Like "Demos" (2010) or "Stray Songs: 2000-2010", it is mostly a record for fans and a required listening for them, proving if necessary that finally, nothing never really changed if you consider the very core of Rivulets.

Six songs are offered into their primitive format and you feel they could have evolved in a produced form like on these two albums they follow or precede. Maybe it is just the embryo of another album which never saw the light of the day.

I can't pretend that I have been surprised by this EP. It starts with the a capella and unspecific "No rest". But already the second track, "Stars In Aspic" sounds like it could have been a nice desperate and romantic slowcore song.  "Into the woods" is dark, still and pensive, "Taste" is minimal and feverish.

The last to songs are (potential) Rivulets classics, "Bordeaux", and "Destroy my life" are haunting and you just really wish they could have been developed musically, with orchestration, like on "We're fucked". Maybe someday he will revisit these songs. Until then we can put our hands and ears on it.

http://www.rivulets.net