Walk Light

From Unwashed territories

Us & Them are Britt and Anders, a Swedish duo whose work for the much-loved Fruits de Mer label has featured many times in my shows. Their most recent FdM outing, as part of the excellent Re-Evolution compilation of Hollies covers, contained their version of 'Butterfly', a gorgeous lilting reinterpretation which was, despite some pretty stiff competition, the album's stand out track.

Us & Them are the kind of band who can make a cover version their own, which is why they've fitted the Fruits de Mer roster like a glove. In their hands 'Butterfly' was transformed from an appealing, if fairly insubstantial little ditty into a melancholy psych-folk explosion.

Now, their EP of self-penned tunes, Walk Light, has reached me. Released this time on the Ritual Echo label, this small but very substantial collection actually came out back in November but found its way through my letterbox only recently. The result? I now no longer see Us & Them as purveyors of some of the most wondrous cover versions I've ever heard, but as some of the most wondrous songs I've ever heard.

If anything, their own stuff is even better. Only four songs, but each one deserves to be celebrated in its own right. I didn't think Weston-Super-Mare could inspire anything other than the most feeble sun tan, but Us & them have made it the title of a great song and freed me, at last, from my association of the town with the great ladybird plague of 1976. Other tracks are equally as fine, but it's when you get to the end of the EP that the goosebumps really start and something unspeakably tender starts running around your head and down your spine.

It's called 'Oblivion' and it's five minutes plus of one of the most beautiful songs I've heard in the last few years. I'm playing it in my April show on Dandelion Radio, which you can still hear streaming at various times during the rest of the month: it's in there alongside, as usual, a lot of abrasive electronics, Hungarian punk and all sorts of other wonderful things, but in their own gentle way 'Oblivion' and Us & Them can equal the power of any of them.

From The Rocktologist

With the re-emergence of vinyl, even EPs have made a comeback. There are now quite a few new record labels, releasing not only LPs, but EPs as well. One such is Ritual Echo Records, which has just released the Walk Light EP, by Us And Them.

I was already aware of Us And Them before getting this album, as they recorded an EP of covers for another vinyl record label, Fruits de Mer Records. On this occasion it was time for Us And Them to release 15 minutes of their own material. I have to say their EP of covers didn't exactly thrill me, so my expectations were rather low. It's always a nice surprise to see when a band is actually better at its own music than with cover versions. Luckily, this was the case here.

Us And Them impress with their own slant on folk, which I would call dark "creepy" folk (in a good way, not like the "old man playing with himself behind a tree" creepy), which oozes heavy atmosphere, gloom and lots of character. The first three tracks set the stage nicely, but it's definitely a case of save the best for last with this EP, as Oblivion not only keeps the folky feel from before but adds a "haunted" dimension with the space rock synths.

Not your everyday folk album, but one with a big personality. It's very slow-moving, not in-your-face folk. But just like people who are reserved and shy at first and really come out of their shell and shine once you get to know them, so it is with this EP. Doom and gloom at first glance, but very warm and deep in essence.

From Psycedelic folk

Four out of five

From Unpeeled net

SOUNDS LIKE? A snooze. Woozy old hippyshit that shits all over your headphones, but does, annoyingly and cloyingly, drag you in. Lyrically, "Something out there that we don't understand" pisses all over yer average new age claim to knowledge and joining Luxembourg to Perth without a logigal seam is pure class. I'm hooked. Of course, they can't play for toffee, but you'll care less about that than they do when you're wrapped in the blunt, childlike innocence of their obvious, but cunningly articulated stories.
IS IT ANY GOOD? Yeah, it's a growing thing, but it's a growing thing.

From JerryLucky.com

Here's a Swedish duo, Anders and Britt who's self-penned music is an outgrowth of performing some cover tunes for another label. It's a soft and delicate music that rests like a mist on the grass. Heavily folk influenced, there is just a hint of synthesizers providing ethereal soundscapes over which Britt's vocals melt into. Think of acid-folk music on valium. The four songs on the disc are between three and five minutes in length and while the first Three tend to be more straight forward in structure, they do stretch out and get a little more spacey on the fourth "Oblivion" [5:08]. For my ears this is certainly the most intriguing, and I'd love to hear more tracks like this. I like that contrast between the earthy vocals, acoustic guitar and electronic synths.