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The Alchemist

When listening to Low Tide’s transportive debut album, The Alchemist, it’s easy to get caught up in the sweeping strings, the abject charm of creator Eli Oberman’s voice, and especially the sense of the elemental, the notion that what is happening on this record is not only a force of nature, but is also an inevitability. So when Oberman provided the following descriptor—“every song on the record is touching one or more of the natural elements”—it was difficult to not grin at the sheer simpatico of it all.

“The elements of earth, wind, fire, and water, when brought into balance, create metaphorical gold, and there is this idea of alchemy taking all the elements of your life, and of the earth, and trying to find the right balance,” says Oberman. The Alchemist conspires to embrace the complexities of life, the fractious nature of existence, the elemental way humanity seems to simultaneously be disassembling and recreating, in an effort to simplify how we all manage them—an ostensibly herculean task. Luckily Low Tide, the recording project of Eli Oberman, Courtney Robbins, and Fen Ikner, take the arduous expanse of existence and condense it into a series of lovingly orchestrated and tenderly sung tunes on their debut album. Existing in the pastoral crevices that have birthed such mossy-hilled folk-classics as Van Morrison’s Veedon Fleece and, more recently, the trauma-folk of Big Thief and the haunting warmth of Antony and the Johnsons and PJ Harvey, the band’s first release is lucky enough to not only carry this oft-under recognized style, but to insinuate such a unique perspective as to make something anachronistic sound fresh again.

Entirely self-produced, The Alchemist’s sound is marked by confident and cool electric guitars, swirling amidst mandolin, sweeping violin, percussion, luscious synths and vibraphone, all the while vocalist Eli Oberman “lets [their] weirdness out” by weaving fairytale-like yarns steeped in the natural and mystical world, like on the shivering delicacy of “Gone Gone,” portentous apocalyptic imagery on “Floods Are Coming,” and the raucous expansiveness of “Ocean Call.” But don’t be fooled by the album’s calm, this is by no means wallpaper as music, but rather a vessel for transportation. To listen to The Alchemist is to give into the rapturous strings, to breathe in the misty air seemingly peppering the freshly green hillsides of Oberman’s narratives, both vaguely ominous and yet captivating for their awe-inspiring grandiosity. Mesmeric reverb and spectral vocals entrance one minute on “Go Down,” creating an air befitting both ornately cavernous cathedrals and also the rustic basement punk shows of yesteryear, before inviting a Phil Spector-like backbeat and ending on the album’s most breathtaking moment. Elsewhere rapturous album opener “Willow” introduces the audience to the titular character, establishing a narrative, one in which songwriter Oberman, in their own words, channels “the beyond.” 

Unlike previous releases, The Alchemist was conceived and recorded in a jag of shock and creativity, culminating in “ten songs in eight weeks,” as Oberman puts it.  In the midst of a period of deep emotional strife, songwriter and lyricist Eli Oberman, as a lark, consulted a deck of tarot cards—neither subscribing to or completely writing off the mythical deck’s reputation. After carelessly flipping over a random card, Oberman was met with the visage of The Alchemist, a genderless symbol of life’s precarious balancing act that – if balanced appropriately – can engender happiness and joy. This moment served as the inspiration for the album, carefully constructed to relate the “holy balance” necessary to facilitate a meaningful and contented existence. For the first time, Oberman found themselves not creating an album, but rather pulling it from the ether and willing it into existence. As Oberman recently related: ”The songs are coming from the beyond and you’re a radio and you have to tune yourself to the right frequency. It’s your work to tune yourself right, to pick it up, but what’s coming out is from somewhere else.” However, this album is careful not to be consumed by the overtly personal and instead uses these notions of balance as they relate to the elements themselves (i.e. earth, wind, fire, water), fostering a message not only personal, but also universal and timely.  

What comes of this all is an album that exists “outside of our normal time and space, including gender.” It is simultaneously timely in its devotion to finding balance in an increasingly chaotic climate, and timeless in its florid arrangements and bucolic patina. Meticulously constructed by the band’s three core members Eli Oberman, on vocals, violin, mandolin, Courtney Robbins (sidenote: both she and Oberman are current members of NY feminist punk band The Shondes), on guitar, and Fen Ikner, playing drums, bass, and keys, each member seamlessly weaves their disparate musical influences together  from R.E.M. to Jewish folk songs, in order to create a singular vision steeped in the revelry and anguish of “the now.”

The Alchemist, implicitly baked in the ambiguity of gender, the detritus of our internal and external lives, and a sweeping milieu of gothic romanticism, is a stunning document of not only a band in full bloom, but also an encapsulation of the world we all live in, offering not just a document of life in America in 2019, but also the world’s introduction to what is sure to be an electrifying future for the band.
The Alchemist is out October 25th and will be self-released.

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