As the clock ticks away, there’s a fragility to every existence that Brooklyn’s experimental quintet In One Wind has captured with an admirable dramatic intensity. Drifting from the aesthetic innovations of their debut towards something more conceptual, they developed for their first EP Lean six narratives built upon an unstable structure, where each voice, with a warm candor, struggles to find its place, and pace itself to the rhythm of the song. Some find a note, a glimpse of a hook on which to rest, if only for a second; some find a partner, and as a solo turns to duet, gain a strength that can settle a tempo, or turn acoustic melancholia into distorted noise-rock; only the poor Drunkard finds nothing, and until the end of his sad tale sways uncertain as a subtle cymbal going crescendo suggests the weight of his time rushing by. Despite nuances of folk, jazz and rock, Lean defines an expressionist world of its own, where the textures and arrangements hold as much narrative power as the words themselves, if not more. – Tracy Mamoun
