At 6:28 AM Eastern Standard Time on March 20—the Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere—Eiyn Sof released Meadow Thrum, an album pitched equidistant from full-out folk and mind-melting psychedelia. Meadow Thrum is a consistently riveting, occasionally confounding collection of escapist sounds and musical textures. File Meadow Thrum next to the most verdant and lush folk records or the most transcendent of alternative records in your collection; Eiyn Sof sits comfortably in both worlds.
Eiyn Sof is the moniker of Waterloo, ON-based musician Melissa Boraski, who’s structured Meadow Thrum to play out like the disembodied soundtrack of someone’s long-lost, home-made Super 8 reel: each track a brief scene that quickly cuts to the next. The perspective changes slightly between some songs (like “Two Thousand Paws” and “Bogland”) while others juxtapose Boraski’s fondness for freaky found-sounds and absorbing acid-folk (“In the Fount” and “Pyre”). “Battleaxis” bristles with a half-minute of backward incantations before the record takes a sharp left turn into further trippy, esoteric territory on “The Heirophant”. “You’re on a Hill” is a wild mix of ancient hymn and mystic spell, bound together by unspooling guitar strings and a second-hand theremin.
