The Sleeves

Another gem in Jack Cooper’s menagerie, and one that feels like a companion piece to the latest iteration of Modern Nature. This record is both a follow-up of sorts to Jack and Tara’s duo record on Mossy Tapes and just as much a complete deviation from it. Where that record poked through the veil of improvisation in instrumental shades, The Sleeves debut is a vision of symbiosis in spare pop. It is a record about space and the shape of sound as it dashes into the tape. Here Jack and Tara slip through the a seance of austerity, bending guitar phrases around one another in patient paces, finding the comfort of harmonies that fit between the spaces. The record isn’t hung on much, just the pair of voices and the pair of guitars, but their close-proximity parries fill the listener with a sense of strange comfort.

Tara was an integral part of the new Modern Nature record, and it’s clear from The Sleeves, that a large part of that record lies in the interplay between their guitars. As they discuss, much of the magic here is working guitars to not sound like guitars. Plucks and strums sing and call. They ring and reverberate. They push against the breeze and ride the slipstream back again. The record flickers, a candle and the wind in one, the fuel and the fire in constant concert. It’s a good year for an unembellished brand of pop, and along with The Hobknobs, The Sleeves are leading the charge.

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