vestals - forever falling (download)

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Putting on Forever Falling Toward the Sky is like opening the door to an astonishing and breath-taking alternate reality, one in which the Edith Frosts and Beth Ortons of the world find themselves at Liz Harris's doorstep instead of Jim O'Rourke's. Vestals is the one-woman project of Bay Area haze maiden Lisa McGee and the line she treads between folk-leaning alt-pop and oversaturated, reverb-laced psychadelia here is so thin that it seems utterly improbable that she will make it to the album's end without wavering and leaning too heavily to one side or the other. Then the final feedback swell of In Waking Dreams cuts out and she's done it. The balancing act is stellar and truly something to behold. The LP's five tracks seem boundless, able to hold infinite guitar and vocal layers without ever turning into a convoluted mess, a noteworthy technical feat in and of itself. That the magnificently sculpted results of that craftsmanship manage to sustain McGee's extraordinarily singular vision over the course of the album makes the entire affair that much more impressive. Mike Shiflet, Experimedia

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Forever Falling Toward the Sky' is the first ever release by Bay Area based Vestals, AKA Lisa McGee. A taught set of haunting electric ballads, these six tracks weave together a number of layered guitars and vocals into a smokey tapestry of blown electricity. Rather than the ephemeral drones McGee has been involved with recently, most notably the group-mind ensemble Portraits & the duo Higuma, Vestals retains the clarity of song, with these hypnotic gyms having been slowly carved out over a year of recording & mixing. Filled out with drum machine & bass, 'Forever Falling Toward the Sky' really does have the feeling of a group completely jelled, hammering out feedback in a California basement, high on guitar worship & sunsets.