Sylvan Esso gives synths a human glow
Duo’s sophomore album finds new angles on old themes
The sound of a CD skipping was an ever-present annoyance for a generation of music listeners raised on Discmans and boomboxes. It’s a tribute to the humanizing power of nostalgia that the same sound in 2018, on Sylvan Esso’s song “The Glow,” invokes something different in the mind of the duo’s producer half, Nick Sanborn.
“When I heard it, I realized it wasn’t a sound I heard much anymore,” the 35year-old says. “It used to be a sound that elicited frustration. And this time when we heard it, I heard it as its own music. It has this layer of nostalgia for my younger self right in it; it took me back, listening to that record.”
Between finding sounds that elicit specific emotions, and the deeply personal lyrics of 29-year-old Amelia Meath, the music that Sylvan Esso plans to bring to Berkeley’s Greek Theater on Thursday, July 12, in support of its second album “What Now” answers what can feel like a daunting question for this generation of electro-pop acts: How does one make samples, synths and beat machines feel human?
“I think all you have to do is really want to connect with people and be tender with their, and your, thoughts and feelings,” Meath says. “We’re not going to try and earworm our way into people’s hearts. We’re trying to use earworms to talk
about real feelings and the intricacies of being a human, in this very sad and tragic world that we’re in right now.”
It’s a formula that has taken Sylvan Esso on a rapid ride since the band’s 2014 self-titled debut. In just five years, the North Carolina outfit has gone from small rooms to big-print billing at festivals and headlining amphitheaters like the Greek.
“Last time we were there, we were just going to play one night” at the Fox Theater in Oakland, Sanborn recalls. “And that sold out faster than any of our other shows on the West Coast, so we moved it to two nights, and even that one was sold out before our L.A. shows sold out. We didn’t think that was a thing that could happen for us in the bay.”
“I’m still high from doing two sold-out nights at the Fillmore,” Meath says.
“I’m still high from selling out the Bottom of the Hill,” Sanborn adds.
But that growth in popularity in the Bay Area and beyond, originally spurred by the duo’s hit single “Coffee,” has meant both bigger success and bigger expectations for a sophomore release.
“It’s both reassuring, and another challenge to continue making excellent work,” Meath says. “It’s wonderful — all you can do is keep asking for the job, and when people continue to give it to you, you have to continue living up to the challenge.”
“It’s now up to you to make it turn into something bigger and not ruin it,” Sanborn adds. “It’s easy to feel like you might ruin it.”
It only takes one listen to “What Now” to realize that Sylvan Esso didn’t “ruin it.” Meath is talented at finding new angles on well-worn topics; “Die Young” one of the album’s singles, turns a love song into a lament about thoughts of an early death (“I had it all planned out before you met me, I had a plan, you ruined it completely”), while “Just Dancing” is about hiding yourself behind online dating profiles and never getting past that first meeting (“it feels so good when we begin, so let’s freeze it now before it ends”).
And the aforementioned “The Glow,” with its CD-skipping sample, is nostalgia in its purest form, remembering a time when a single song could change your life (Meath used her memories of listening to indie rock band the Microphones’ “The Glow Part 2” as inspiration).
It’s “this feeling of music lifting you into the air and making you feel like the being you were meant to be and seen in a particular way that friends and adults can’t see you when you’re a teenager — or an adult or when you’re anybody, really,” Meath says about “The Glow.”
Death in a love song, dating illusions — these are not easy topics to take to the Top 40. But it’s the difference between the cartoon version of the heart and the actual, beating, real thing: Humans are complicated.
“A lot of pop music, out of necessity, reduces complex emotional exchanges down to a lowest common denominator or an easy slogan,” Sanborn says. “We set out to never do that.”