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Sylvan Esso talks exploring the joy, pain, and politics of pop before Solid Sound set Friday at MASS MoCA

Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath are Sylvan Esso.
Shervin Lainez
/
Shore Fire Media
Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath are Sylvan Esso.

Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn are the two halves of Sylvan Esso, the electronic pop duo and married couple performing at the Solid Sound festival Friday at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts.

This isn’t vocalist and songwriter Meath’s first Solid Sound.

“I had the great honor of playing the first Solid Sound with Mountain Man," she told WAMC. "So being able to come back with Sylvan Esso and not just as a random guest but to be able to be there and play there is just a real honor.”

While a student at Bennington College in Vermont just over the state line from Berkshire County, Meath formed Mountain Man with two friends in 2010. The folk trio was quickly celebrated for their ethereal harmonies and striking intimacy, and exploded from a MySpace page to festival bookings before the year was out, including the first Solid Sound.

Sylvan Esso – which pairs Meath’s singing with ebullient electronics and stadium-ready beats – followed in 2013 when Meath connected with musician Sanborn.

While Mountain Man revels in sparse arrangements and a hypnotic delicacy, Meath says the pop bombast that accompanies Sylvan Esso has been a part of her since she first fantasized about being a musician.

“The top ones would be like, Annie Lennox and Foreigner and Sade, probably, would be my main ones that I was like dreaming of being," she said. "Madonna, definitely.”

Looking past the obvious aesthetic differences, Meath doesn’t see her work with Sylvan Esso as a departure from Mountain Man.

“In a lot of ways, I think that Sylvan Esso is kind of an extension of Mountain Man, because even though even though the structure of the songs is different, the intent is kind of the same, which is like helping everybody be present together in the moment, either by being very still and quiet together or by dancing,” she explained.

Meath says the band’s combination of melancholy and exuberance is in service of its worldview.

“I think Nick Hornsby did such a good job of talking about it in 'High Fidelity,' that, like, the thing that pop music has always been about is misery, but it's wrapped in, like, a beautiful and deliciously chewy package," she said. "And with Sylvan Esso, I mostly just wanted to be able to consciously harness that and turn it into, instead of being solely about heartbreak, being about all sorts of things that are happening in the world and trying to talk about that. The older I get and the deep the deeper into this job I venture, I am realizing that, like, Sylvan Esso’s mission is not unlike all of my favorite bands. But I'm very, I'm very proud of the songs we make, and the way that we talk about the world.”

So what is the Sylvan Esso worldview?

“Well, let’s see," said Meath. "We need to start paying attention to the environment. We need to protect people. I think mostly, the band itself is mainly about the environment, but also about taking care of the people in it as if they are members of the environment. Which includes, you know, protecting queer and trans people and making sure that women can get abortions and trying to be kind to everyone.”

Sanborn says exploring the fissures between the personal and the communal is an inextricable part of the group.

“So many things can happen when you sample something," he told WAMC. "But one that I'm the most drawn to is sampling a sound that has an incredibly personal relationship just to me, or just to me and Amelia, that might not have that relationship to anybody else. Maybe nobody else can ever really know why we put that sound in there, or what the in joke was, or what the moment looked like. But by sampling it in an obvious way, we're showing people that there's a bigger story there for us. And because there's a bigger story for us, I feel like it gives the listener the opportunity to put their own story in there too. It's like you're telling somebody that they can trust your intent, that you mean everything that you're saying, and that this is a layer cake to you, and that if they follow you down, it's going to be worth it.”

He’s a big fan of a band with strong ties to North Adams: The Books.

“Every once in a while an artist comes along to completely reinvent the way sampling can work," said Sanborn. "Which, you know, has a long history as an art form unto itself. But it's rare that somebody completely rewrites – no pun intended – the book on sampling. And I feel like they brought a new version of meticulousness and nostalgia and recontextualization to something that is so familiar.”

The duo is made up of Williams College alum Nick Zammuto and Dutch cellist Paul de Jong and relocated to North Adams from New York City in the early 00s before the release of their acclaimed sophomore album “The Lemon Of Pink.”

“They brought this incredibly intricate chamber music aesthetic to a world where it had not previously really existed, in a way that felt entirely natural," said Sanborn. "No part of that felt like, you know, a mash up, or a forcing together. It felt absolutely, like, elemental. And I just don't think that is something that happens very often at all. That might be like a once every 20 years kind of thing.”

After the interruption of the COVID-19 pandemic and a full band arrangement of Sylvan Esso for last spring’s in-studio concert film “WITH LOVE,” Sanborn says the return to the duo format on the road has been a blessing.

“We rebuilt the entire duo show in a way," he told WAMC. "Like, from the ground up. I have a whole different rig. And it's just like, man, something about doing that big band just unlocked this whole new way to interpret this music that in some cases is like 10 years old, you know? It just opened up this new phase of the duo show to me. And so that, we’ve really been having fun exploring that and finding new ways to transition and new ways to- We're constantly trying to surprise each other on stage every night, and it just feels like the whole thing has this new breath in it. So that's, I mean, we've been doing- The spread has been really wide. We've been occasionally trying out a couple of new songs here and there. We're trying to change it up every night, and it's feeling really alive right now in a really positive way. I'm just thrilled to be on tour.”

Meath offered a preview of what Sylvan Esso fans can expect from their set just before fest organizers Wilco at Solid Sound.

“Oh my gosh," she said. "It's going to be so fun. Running and jumping and dancing and singing. Feeling feelings.”

Sylvan Esso performs at Joe’s Field at 7:30 p.m. Friday at MASS MoCA as a part of the Solid Sound Festival.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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