THE LEAVES are coming down in droves now, so wrapping y’self up against the incipient chill with the Anglophile dreampop stylings of Brooklyn’s Endearments is our self-care tip to keep the darkening year at bay.
With an EP, Father Of Wands, due on November 5th, and which four-tracker is happily hunting out next to Brotherhood-era New Order and Black Marble, Endearments have dropped the warming dreampop glimmer of “Empress” to give you that Ready Brek glow.
The group is very much the project of former Saint Marilyn member Kevin Marksson, breaking out with a personal indie-synth vision which it’s pretty easy to be besotted by. It puts on the glad rags of New Order when they were effortless and untouchable, that Barney Sumner whispered vocal style repurposed for a track with a halcyon Eighties’ glow and a tricksy time signature in the break.
Lyrical barbs lurk within the cheering glow, however; there’s that acid declaration: “Take from me / Take endlessly / I know that you can.”
It’s the first time in a decade he’s stepped out and created on his own, with the band name Endearments chosen with perspicacity. “I wanted the name to convey affection, even though I knew the music would almost certainly be sad,” he says.
We’re told it’s a song about reclaiming agency and recognizing what you have for yourself, without the fragile, capricious props of a dissatisfactory, demanding other; a subject perhaps too close to Kevin’s heart and recent experience, as it (and the EP) reflect on the breakdown of his marriage in 2019.
The EP’s name is drawn from the Tarot deck, and was ready to be written and composed into before the tunes themselves emerged.
“I like to draw a tarot card whenever one of my tattoos is finished,” Kevin explains. “I pulled the Father of Wands during a very turbulent breakup in 2019, but it wasn’t until the end of writing this EP the following year that I began to connect the two.” The Father (or King) is the ultimate card in the suit of Wands, representing for Marksson a dream-figure whose open heart guides him through conflict into a place of healing.
Endearments’ Father Of Wands is out on November 5th digitally and on limited edition cassette. You can place your pre-order here.
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