Rauelsson – Debutantes EP

contributor: Ed Thanhouser, Feb. 9th, 2010

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Rauelsson’s Debutantes EP is your early morning wake up album. It opens somewhere in that space between dreaming and waking, meandering along a gentle arc of gathering intensity. The five song free download was released earlier this month on Hush Records as a teaser to their forthcoming full-length studio album. Sung entirely in Spanish and featuring some of Portland’s preeminent recording talents, Debutantes is thoughtful and elegant. Lead singer Raúl Pastor Medall is relatively new to Portland, and his songs seem like a perfect complement to an otherwise dyed-in-the-wool Portland folk rock. Rauelsson doesn’t try to impress or overpower you. Instead, the band seems more interested in making space for the music to breathe so you can get lost inside it. Fortunately, they’ve got the songs to pull this off.

The album begins with the title track, an entrancing tune focused around Medall’s finger picked guitar and singing. The instruments and harmonies seep in like a lullaby, gradually building around Medall’s voice, although the song never climaxes. It’s this unresolved tension that compels you throughout the course of the album. “Elefantes y Niñas,” a cover of fellow Hush artists Loch Lomond, quickens the pace, if only slightly. Throughout, Medall’s voice is not the most confident or self-assured, but rather than distracting from the music, it adds to it by being genuinely human. It’s not a voice hidden under layers of effects and reverb. It’s hesitant, it wavers, and it falters. But you can touch it, it’s real.

“Palideces” slows things down again. It’s atmospheric and reverent, and you feel like you’ve stumbled into an early morning mass. The lush harmonies are set against a backdrop of minimally played organ, and the sound of a rewinding tape creeps in from time to time. This version is a remix of “Palidez,” which will appear on the full-length album, and it seems to take more chances than the other songs on the EP.  “Palideces” feels like it’s been stripped of its backbone—there’s no typical finger picked guitar acting as the song’s adhesive. It’s a nice choice. It gives the album spaciousness and lets you linger in the song.

Rather than as a stand-alone record, Debutantes feels much more like a prelude to a larger work, which it is. More importantly, Debutantes feels like a celebration. Even in its quietest and most introspective moments, the music is joyful. Debutantes teases you: It ends just as it starts to really get going, and it leaves you wanting more. Like its title suggests, Debutantes is an announcement of a band coming into its own. Rauelsson has invested a lot artistically in their EP. If that’s any indication of things to come, then I think we also have good reason to celebrate.

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