MV + EE or for the uninitiated, Matt Valentine and Erika Elders keep on making their tasty jam rolls. Like this song from their new album Root/Void, “yr my jam”. They’ve been on the scene for a while, and like sea divers, they keep on coming up to the eye of the general public and than diving back into the musical underground. One moment they come with an album that is more publicly available, the other they just keep on pumping up their self-produced and self published stuff. Just take a look at their site ( [MV & EE](https://mvandee.blogspot.com/)), or drop by any of their concert, held usually at places that resembles a music venue and dive into their vast collection of self-produced vinyls, cd’s…
But they do produce great stuff. Otherwise they wouldn’t have gained the attention of, for example, Sonic Youth guitar duo Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo. Moor actually produced and issued one of their more wider public oriented album from 2006, “Green Mile” (with another guitar man, J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. doing the drums), and Lee Renaldo giving praise to this latest, “more official” release. So was the praise worth it?
Oh, yes. MV + EE were first lumped with the so called “Freak Folk” scene with the bands like Sunburned Hand of Man. And as they say in some parts of Europe: “they sound exactly like them, but not even close”. Basically, Renaldo puts it perfectly: “MV & EE take their homespun hypnotics and cosmic country sounds to new levels on Root / Void”. No wonder J. Mascis didn’t try to swing his guitar along this duo, they keep on weaving that psychedelic yarn to perfection, combining them with this also characteristic echoed and delayed dual vocals.
MV+EE closely recreate on their studio outings the sound they produce during their live shows. If you didn’t see, or aren’t able to see their live show, compare this album to any of the ones of their self-published recorded live shows. You’ll be amazed how close the sound is and how far into that “countrified space zone” MV+EE will take you.
Homespun hypnotics as Renaldo says, indeed. More.
