FERN 014 - CD

Reviewed by George Zahora

for splendid e-zine:

www.splendidezine.com

Susurrate has been out of print for years. To shoegazer types, it's a bit of a classic - blurred, thundering guitars, muffled jackhammer beats, waves of synthesized white noise and solemn male and female vocals, heavily laden with hollow, stony reverb. Assuming you don't mind your music sounding as if it came from the bottom of a deep Czechoslovakian cistern, you'll love it - played at high volume, it must be the aural equivalent of standing in a wind tunnel. Others may have taken the genre farther, or in more inventive directions, but Susurrate is as dynamic now as it was at the beginning of the decade, and as perfect an example of its genre as anyone could hope to acquire.

Reviewed by Ballard Lesemann

for the January 5th, 2000 edition of Flagpole magazine:

www.flagpole.com

This amazing Czech rock quartet originally recorded this guitar-dense debut album in Prague at the Smetana's Theatre Studios back in 1992 but never got much attention with it...until BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel took notice. The influential radio host brought the band into the studios for a successful "Peel Session" that year, yet the band still went unnoticed. For years. The very small Jacksonville, Fla. label Clairecords somehow caught wind of the band, got its hands on the master tapes, pressed 500 copies on disc and recently re-released it. Thank goodness they did. Susurrate may be one of the weightiest and most emotionally engaging "ambient rock" albums of the year. Driven by an extremely compressed mix of variously distorted guitar and bass sounds and loosely-executed primal drum patterns, the Ecstasy of St. Theresa's music is very much in the vein of early My Bloody Valentine, Bailter Space and Slowdive material. Whereas the drone-and-moan of the "shoegazer" noise rock heyday (approximately 1986-1994) oftentimes mopes through the same motions, the songs on Susurrate bound from extremely slow and bleak sonic territory to almost Wagnerian (or rather, Dvorakian) orchestral triumphs; from extreme sadness to transcendence. Susurrate is noise-filled, dynamic, emotional and intense. The details become more intriguing, and the overall effect becomes more moving with each listen.

Reviewed by Theo Cateforis

for The Big Takeover:

www.thebigtakeover.com

Susurrate means "to whisper or murmur." And that's about what this lost classic of the shoegazing era had back in 1992 when it was first released, then subsequently disappeared without a trace outside of this group's Czechoslovakia home. Although this 1999 version is apparently drastically remixed, the sound is still far from crystalline. But that's OK, beacuse it's appeal is likely limited to those My Bloody Valentine fans like myself who believe Isn't Anything ranks above the much more critically revered Loveless. Tracks such as "Pistacchio Places" are charged with the same sort of frenzied distorted meloncholy that made MBV's "You Made Me Realise" such a classic. And the aptly named "Swoony" charts some wonderful early Slowdive territory. A marvelous release, not to be missed.

Reviewed by Alejandro Alaluf

for DreamPop Links:

www.jump.to/dreampoplinks

It's hard to imagine Czech shoegazers. But they do exist. I've come across the name of The Ecstasy of St. Theresa in key moments along various mailing lists devoted to this subject. But always with the final conclusion that this was a mysterious band that resembled more of a Seefeel-like approach to music, in terms that their music was great, yes, but as an ambient band. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

But then there was also this forgotten record, their debut, that made the name for them in the first place. It was called Susurrate. And now it's being reissued, courtesy of Clairecords, and it's a tremendous píece of work. A clone of My Bloody Valentine, yes, but who cares? It's exactly that kind of sound what we all crave anyhow. The enveloping effect, the guitars the whispered voices... That's what this is all about. And the era that this cuartet from Prague lead by Jan Muchow (think Mr. Shields) and the angelic Irna Libowitz (think Ms. Butcher), adopt is not the Loveless -era soundscapes, but the noise here is more akin to the grinding and loud guitars of the You Made Me Realize and the Feed Me With Your Kiss EPs.

A neurotic drumming assault opens the record with 'Pistachio Places' and a barrel of guitar noise leads path to a lovely pop song. Then comes 'Swoony' and again, this is what shoegaze is all about: a long miasmatic haze of loud but shimmering guitar soundscapes that make the achingly beautiful, soaring-high voices of Libowitz and Muchow (think Butcher & Shields, Halstead & Goswell, Gardener & Bell) glide on the background. A minor glitch: the bass (of Jan Gregar) sounds way to deep and swallows the aural majesty of the above work. My friends at Clairecords may forgive what I'll say, but never mind the new mastering, the mixing of many tracks is still poor. With headphones the effect works much better, though. But let's move on. The chaotic, but then calm 'Taolison' resembles more to a J&M Chain guitar work with profound, deep echoes that lead path to the twisted, fantastic 'Icecream Star', where Libowitz voice crosses upon the frenetic, but rhythmic drumming of Peter Wegner (think O'Ciosoig, but you already figured it out, right?) Then, the tremendous, deep guitar impact of 'Thorn In Y'r Grip',that melts into a glittering, dreamy guitar which fades into the medieval, dark beauty of 'Seven' (think MBV's 'I Need No Trust'). Finally, the record fades out with the swirly, epic guitars of 'Absynth'.

It's obvious, but it's there, resurrected. An interesting and elegant must to remember how the good ol' days were in the early nineties.