ALBUM REVIEW: Versatile – A Stick And A Stone

Formed in 2007, A STICK AND A STONE is a collaborative project creating dark and avant-garde chamber music with a choral focus and folk instrumentation. Vocalist/composer Elliot Miskowicz draws on his experiences as an openly trans and disabled artist to create odes to the invisible and silenced, as well as hopeful serenades to our broken world. There is a truthful sincerity permeating throughout A STICK AND A STONE’s music, which is united by a particular approach rather than a common sound. Following 2017’s The Long Lost Art of Getting Lost, Versatile arrives as the fourth full-length album of the project.

Pitched as “avant-garde, doom/psychedelic folk, chamber music and darkwave,” Versatile is more uniform in style than you might expect. This is a winding and exploratory experience with few dramatic landmarks along the way; the understated beauty of each moment is, nevertheless, compelling. Poetic imagery – rooted in nature, introspection and their concurrence – guides the music, and deserves to be read as it is sung. Where The Long Lost Art Of Getting Lost was an abstraction built upon the Rock tradition, Versatile is folk through-and-through. Add to that some avant-garde flourishes, and the result bears more than a little similarity to latter-day CURRENT 93.

The album was written following Miskowicz‘s departure from Philadelphia’s urban sprawl, and the album is deeply evocative of the artist’s escape to the Cascadian wilderness. Found sounds, loops, drones and layered strings accompany Miskovicz’s diaphanous voice, which has a carefully measured cadence not unlike Nico (of Andy Warhol fame.) Musical ideas are quite thin on the ground, but it’s easy enough to become swept away in the enchanting atmosphere of this album. A STICK AND A STONE has the singular character of most autonomous projects, but amplified by a rustic production which lends a pleasant, homespun charm. One gets the impression that Versatile sounds exactly as its creator intended, and it is that authenticity which makes this album live and breathe.

Versatile is a worthy successor to 2017’s The Long Lost Art Of Getting Lost. The biography of its creator is written into each moment, and it’s impossible to fault the emotive sincerity of Miskowicz‘s voice. The compositions of Versatile are built upon found sounds and drones rather than bass hooks and rhythms, which makes casual listening a little difficult, but it’s pleasant and easy to become carried away in the imagery and atmosphere A STICK AND A STONE creates. Evocative, introspective and bucolic, Versatile makes an ideal companion for autumnal walks and long winter nights.

Rating: 8/10

Versatile is out now via Anima Recordings.

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