Esben and the Witch sound very much as you would expect a band named after a Danish fairytale to sound. Their music is slowburning, ethereal and bewitching, with inevitable echoes of Portishead and Kate Bush. Lyrics are literary and dark in the Grimm sense of the word, with singles making unexpected references to James Joyce’s depressive daughter in ‘Lucia at the Precipice’ and the effects of silver oxide poisoning in ‘Aygira’.
Perhaps not the kind of music that has clear mainstream appeal. Nonetheless over the past year Esben and the Witch have been gaining quiet acclaim from the likes of the Guardian and Q, and were featured on the BBC Sound of 2011… shortlist alongside the considerably poppier likes of Jessie J and Claire Maguire. For this unassuming three-piece such accolades appear to be rather bewildering and when I congratulate them on their recent critical success they seem a little uncomfortable, thanking me but admitting that the attention makes them uneasy: “We feel somewhat surprised to find ourselves on lists like these. Whilst it is flattering it also seems to set up a level of expectation that we aren’t entirely comfortable with.”
This discomfort with success is born out by their responses throughout the interview. The band, which consists of singer and percussionist Rachel Davis, guitarist Daniel Copeman and Thomas Fisher who also plays guitar and keyboards, are reserved throughout. Despite admitting to being influenced by gothic architecture and literature, they deny that they are part of the resurgent ‘goth’ scene saying that they feel their appeal is more to do with the human attraction to darkness than any particular gothic stylings. I wonder where the inspiration comes for their unconventional subject matter. “We feel a certain fascination with the macabre, but these things also contain elements of beauty and some of the songs celebrate that.”
I wonder how they felt about the intriguing label “nightmare pop”, attached to them early on in their career, and they say that although they enjoy the juxtaposition, they feel it is a conceit they have since moved away from. Although it is a neat term, the label seems too simplistic for the broad multi-media approach of the band. Recently the band contributed an eighteen minute soundscape to be used as part of an installation by the artist Karl Sanders. A fascination with visual as well as musical aesthetics is a running theme in the band’s work. When I ask them with who they would most like to collaborate, their admittance that they long to work with a film maker seems logical. “We are fascinated by working on a soundtrack because it frees you from the restrictions of writing conventional songs.” They go on, “In general we try and eschew these restrictions anyway, like conventional structure, to try and achieve a more cinematic feel.”
Despite their high brow approach, the band appear to be on the brink of greater success. Last year they toured with Foals and The xx – an experience they describe as “gruelling and somewhat chaotic at times but always exhilarating.” When I ask them about their plans they merely state that they intend to continue writing, recording and developing the live show. Nonetheless I wish them well, if only because there is something brilliantly English about songs that encompass such uncommercial themes as mental illness, modernism and industrial poisoning.