Ill Ease

The Exorcist

BY Vish KhannaPublished May 1, 2004

Brooklyn-based artist Elizabeth Sharp has become renowned for her various visual projects, including a Polaroid photography show at the prestigious Museum of Modern Art in New York. The former drummer of New Radiant Storm King and bassist of Skinner Pilot has now stepped into the spotlight under the moniker, Ill Ease. Sharp’s stab at indie pop on her full-length debut is ostensibly "artsy” as well, drawing from a variety of other bands to create a somewhat disconcerting and at times downright irritating musical mix. The album’s first single, "Jersey-o-matic” contains two of the most off-putting elements of Sharp’s musical methodology; dizzying arrangements and strained, whiny phrasing. By the second song, "Winter In Hell,” any novelty that might be drawn from Sharp’s aesthetic vanishes in the flurry of jarringly held bad notes that close out the song. Ill Ease clearly view bands like Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead as mapmakers, and if you throw in a bit of the stoner, don’t-give-a-fuck attitude copped by Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion, you’d have a pretty good idea what The Exorcist might sound like.
(Too Pure)

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