The first few seconds of All We’re Made of Is Borrowed drop us into the den of a medieval troubadour. An Laurence and Kim Farris-Manning play a delicate song of guitar strums and plaintive voice, calling to mind the storytellers of yore. But by the time the next track comes along, the two Canadian artists have transformed their lamentations into blown-out spoken word pieces with hazy guitars. The two artists who comprise the Paramorph Collective are shapeshifters, and All We’re Made of Is Borrowed showcases the variety of styles they embody together. No matter where the duo goes, they bring a sense of deep intimacy and understanding to the music they play. When either one sings, it comes from deep in the soul; when they speak, they follow the contour of their intimate words. But their music-making is at its most visceral with emerging composer Margot George’s Fruiting Bodies, the epic twenty-one-minute apex of the album. Here, a heavy amorphous drone grows from Laurence’s dense guitar, shrouding Farris-Manning’s organ-synthesizer in a cloud of feedback. But sometimes, swirling twinkles emerge like little bits of stardust.
It’s a surprising twist, but Paramorph Collective never stays in one place—instead, they travel to them all.
Vanessa Ague is a violinist and music writer currently studying Arts and Culture Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. She runs the experimental music blog theroadtosound.com, and her writing has appeared in The Wire, Pitchfork, Bandcamp Daily, and Tone Glow.