Review #5:

Squash & Biscuit - Lavender Eggplant (Casa Berenice, 2022)

April 11, 2022

Imagine this. You’re given the ability to peek inside the very microscopic chemical processes of any given organism, at any given time. You can observe the rise of oxytocin levels of a nursing mother just like you would a watercolor portrait of a field of flowers. The whole process is ethereal, intense. Oftentimes jarring and confusing, but always contemplative. But this single chemical reaction, this portrait, hangs in a museum where the bustling and slow hum of people’s voices is just as much a part of the experience as the exhibit you are observing in front of you. With the layering of odd samples and fuzzy harmonies, Squash & Biscuit invokes this trippy daydream in me that isn’t so much a daydream. No, I’ve been here before.


Lavender Eggplant gives me this feeling that I’m observing a slice of everyday life that’s been cut, looped on a reel to reel, with heavenly textures and the comfort of human expressions added to it. What adds to the splendor is that it was recorded live, a feat I know firsthand is a combination of rehearsed precision, patience and luck.


Each song on the album is an intentional movement in space and it’s almost like you can hear the physiological process of your ears picking up sounds. My ears can literally hear the dew drops of an early spring morning, refracting celestial light as Dew Drop Refraction plays through my headphones. The invocation of synesthesia at its finest.


Squash & Biscuit immerse you into a landscape you already know, and graciously offer a lens to see the calmness and magic that is present.


You can buy Squash & Biscuit’s Lavender Eggplant, released via Casa Berenice Recordings on bandcamp here

https://casaberenicerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/lavender-eggplant

- TRR