Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

Ainsley & Noah
Live from the LR

9.8

GENRE: House Folk
LABEL: Watch Me! Entertainment
REVIEWED: April 3, 2023

With their debut album, Maryland-based siblings Ainsley and Noah have produced a genre-bending masterpiece. Through meanderingly innovative lyrics and mesmerizingly minimalist arrangements, the duo simultaneously defies and embraces everything house folk can be. The album was recorded live in a Bethesda living room before an intimate audience of five family members and Mrs. Ward, an elderly neighbor who has poor refusal skills and happened to be at her mailbox moments before the impromptu performance began. Filmed on iPhones from several vantage points and initially distributed through Facebook posts, Live From the LR is a Lo-Fi, organic celebration of youthful spontaneity and stupefying. musicality.

Entirely improvised, the album pushes the limits in a way we have not seen since Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters. Eschewing traditional principles of harmony, melody, rhythm, tonality and every other element of music, Ainsley and Noah tear down the building blocks of art itself in order to construct a startlingly novel experience for their audience. For example, the duo uses found objects as the instrumental backdrop for their epically unusual vocals. Wooden spoons, metal pots, a broken xylophone stolen from Juliette’s house, and a Costco-sized container of Advil taken from the upstairs bathroom all conspire to create exorcistic, soul-stirring sounds.

The first track sets the tone for the entire album. “We Got To Go On an Airplane” is a 12-minute aural adventure that oscillates between the ethereal and mundane, spiritual and corporeal. In it, Ainsley proclaims, “We were high up in the sky/ The ground got small/ The ladies and also one man had blue outfits/ Then my ears stopped working good.” Noah interjects with disconcerting irregularity, “I got pretzels.”

The duo’s wild impulsivity is what makes the album so disarming and fresh. “Stand Over There (I Am the Oldest),” an ode to female power, is punctuated by Ainsley’s guttural demands: “Noah, stand back there. Behind me/ I am the oldest!” Using the body as both a vocal and percussive instrument, Ainsley conjures the rhythmic foundation for the song by repeatedly striking her fist against Noah’s back. Noah reciprocates with vocalizations that subvert gender stereotypes. In Ainsley and Noah’s world, the Harpy’s shriek emanates from a male body. The entire album is full of such surprises.

Rejecting established modes of performance, Ainsley and Noah elicit from the audience spoken-word contributions that blur the line between performer and spectator. The best example of this interplay is found in “A Different Song.” Ainsley sings, “Uncle Matt his other girlfriend her name was Sarah/ She looked like a princess/ Hannah is ugly like a witch and her nails are not fancy.” Noah adds, “Her hair is short like a boy/ I have a penis.” In response, a voice from the audience speaks: “Ainsley, honey, how about a different song?” Then, the same. voice emerges once again. This time, however, it is less intrusive and almost acousmatic: “Hannah, I am so, so sorry.” With chameleonic responsiveness, Ainsley instantly pivots to a circuitous ballad about Hannah’s blue glasses while Noah bangs on the broken xylophone with the pill bottle and chants “Sarah.” The very next track, “Please Keep Your Pants On (Mrs. Ward Doesn’t Want To See That),” also leverages the audience as a performer and showcases the lacerating genius of Ainsley and Noah that slices through every cut.

Live From the LR might be the first album from Ainsley and Noah, but it is also the biggest contribution to house folk in the last decade. Even for those who have seen the duo busking in the cereal aisle of the grocery store or at the end of their driveway around the time Mrs. Ward goes for her daily walk, this album is a sensory ambush that validates the refrain of the album’s final song: “The best music is happening now/ The bestest music in the whole wide world.”