Rings | Black Habit

Like many of releases from Paw Tracks, it took me a fair amount of listens to fully warm up to Rings debut long-player, Black Habit. Take last year’s Person Pitch for example, I listened to the record when it was first released in the summer, but it took repeated spins and many months of going back to the record before it finally clicked for me in late November (subsequently after hearing the Turbostation remix of “Comfy In Nautica”).

Over the last few years I’ve realized that I need to be in the right mood for certain types and genres (ie. experimental otherworldliness) of music for songs and records to “click.” After the first round of listening (and not initially liking), I’ll usually go away from said record and come back to it at a later date. A friend of mine uses the “three listen” philosophy and if after the third spin he doesn’t like it, he’ll move onto another record. I tried this method in the past and it didn’t really pan out too well, I was overlooking too many good albums.

“Rings” is a fitting name for the Brooklyn-based trio (formerly known as “First Nation”) of Nina Mehta, Abby Portner and Kate Rosko, as Black Habit is a collection of loose tribal-inspired circular compositions. In their bio, the band also attributes their more fitting moniker to the bonds between them, decision-making processes, and their feminine beliefs, which are described as “interlocking, connected, whole, and continuous.” It’s also fitting that a large print of a dolphin graces the background of the band’s MySpace page – throughout Black Habit female reverb-heavy vocals echo each other in a similar fashion to dolphins echolocation (“Scape Aside”), while intricate arrangements of piano, flutes, and guitars fall to the background letting their gorgeous vocals to come front and center. “Double Thanks” takes inspiration from the Raincoats with its chanting chorous (“…Shy shy shy shy child…”) while the spooky “Is He Handsome” abounds with samples of a woman wheezing set against the bark of a dog and weird oscillations with interplaying female vocal harmonies dominating the stage.

The strenth of Black Habit lies in the trio’s ability to let their vocal harmonies play off each other and not allowing them get subdued in the instrumental haze and falling to the background. Rings plays Glasslands this Saturday (January 20th) before heading on a tour supporting FRICTION alum White Williams, which includes a stop at SXSW. Black Habit is out now on Paw Tracks, Other Music has the digital download and Insound has the CD version.

[MP3]: Rings  ”Is He Handsome”
Black Habit, Paw Tracks; 2008