The Energy You Keep

Description

Not Quite Me is a four-track EP (released both as a CD-EP and as a 10-inch 45 RPM vinyl EP) by the American singer and songwriter Tess Wiley (credited Tess Wiley & Her Orchestra), independently released on the German label Crashkurs Records in 2001. The tracks were recorded by Dominik Sacher and Mark Gillespie. Featuring Tess Wiley on guitar and vocals backed by Matthias Kuczewski on guitar and vocals, Christian Adameid on bass, and Florian Kaiser on drums.

The existence of this EP will undoubtedly be as much of a surprise to you as it was for me to find it on ebay. Tess Wiley, former backing vocalist for Sixpence None the Richer and Velour 100, has receded further and further into the underground ever since she went solo. Over the past few years, she’s put out the Splendora bootleg, the name-change re-release of that as the Phantasmic half of the Phantasmic/Fluffy split CD, and the I Light Up Your Life album of classic rock covers. None of these projects received much attention, Wiley’s increasingly dwindling group of fans pretty much considering them demos or teasers for the “real” album to come.

And we’re still going to be waiting, given only the most obscure teaser of them all in this import EP. It doesn’t even show up on the radar. You won’t find it on the Net anywhere. It’s like Tess just doesn’t want her music to be found.

Sadly, there’s not much to the tunes. Four tracks that alternate between clean-tone jangly guitars and harmless power pop distortion, played by what looks like three German session musicians (the album was recorded in Deutschland). Wiley’s honey-rasp singing that cracks gently with earnest emotion is the main attraction, of course, but the brevity of the EP makes it a tasty but unsatisfying snack.

She mourns a lost relationship in «Broken»,

But he and I left too many words unspoken.
I hide myself throwing dirt around.
Soon I’ll be snug inside this hole I made.
Running out of fingers I can point at him.

acknowledges our oneness as fallen people that move between extremes in «Single Coil Curry»,

When I’m good I’m really good, when I’m bad I’m horrid.
Which one wins?
We are all the same, good and evil.
We all feel the shame hanging our heads in our hands.

and in the title track, sings to a girl (herself?) “who wants the world to beg to hear her sing/ But first you got to figure out the song.”

Let’s hope it doesn’t take her too much longer… [Josh Spencer, Stranger Things Magazine]

EP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Favorite One”
A2. “Broken”

Side Two
B1. “Energy You Keep”
B2. “Single Coil Curry”

Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://tesswiley.bandcamp.com/album/the-energy-you-keep