Edison Woods

Although this review is focused on the music inside, the actual packaging of that music is inexorably tied up with the contents. The album art states a lot about this group, which straddles the line between haunting orchestral arrangements, and slightly poppy elegies. From the twirl of grey, there is a skeletal figure with a blood red body that elicits both sympathy and horror. It is an original painting by Oleg "cmart” Paschenko, and if one could draw a parallel with the music, it is that the skeletal figure of these songs is that of loss, maybe even regret. When lyrics are present, they are presented in a low-key, slow burn capacity by Julia Frodahl, who makes the most of more obtuse songs like "Sing Swan” (with its gorgeous violin) and the accessible torch song "Baby Doll.” Edison Woods are another artist/musician collective along the lines of Slow Six, Lansing-Dreiden and Rachel’s, and it’s the latter band that they take most of their sonic cues from. Fantastic and intimate, Nest of Machines is much more inviting than scary.