Frank Ene – No Longer

No Longer is a suite of six absorbing, patient reveries on conflicted concupiscence and encroaching darkness by Berkeley songwriter Frank Ene, who composed the material in a period of solitude following the demise of his noise-pop group Pure Bliss. Ene abstained from socializing to write the songs, venturing outside mostly to work in the basement of a frame-shop or observe students on the nearby UC Berkeley campus, vintage self-help paperbacks stuffed in his pockets. When it came time to record, he opted to play nearly every instrument himself. “Some songs are affirmations,” he said. “The saddest ones I can’t remember writing, as if someone entered my mind and body in a really brutal way.”

“A minor-keyed blend of pure melancholy, it’s more like a much-needed pain reliever — driving towards the darkness alongside a steady drum beat, lean piano lines, the clanging guitar chords of longtime friend and bandmate Wymond Miles, and Ene’s own morphine drip melodies.”

– self-titled

“Set to the sounds of Ene’s sparse baritone and a dark-country guitar line that could only come from The Fresh & Onlys’ Wymond Miles, the clip sees Frank—at times barely visible—ambling around the remains of an abandoned train station, serving as a visual metaphor of sorts for the theme of mental vagrancy key to No Longer’s aesthetic.”

– FLOOD Magazine

Suffused with an atmosphere of slow-simmering tension, No Longer traffics in understated grooves reminiscent of latter-era Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, with Ene’s rich voice somehow sounding at once wispy and full-bodied. “Flesh in the Womb,” one of the songs to feature songwriter and Fresh & Onlys guitarist Wymond Miles, channels the lasciviousness of Serge Gainsbourg as well as the beguiling sparseness of Dean Blunt. The lyrics to “Housing Alcove,” a crushing meditation on childhood trauma, reveal competing, interconnected feelings of vulnerability and ambition (a duality captured by the evocative album art). A dynamic, repeat listen, No Longer stands among the most musically arresting and emotionally contoured Bay Area solo debuts in recent memory.

– Sam Lefebvre

Track Listing:
1. No Longer
2. I’ve Studied You
3. Drown
4. Flesh In A Womb
5. Housing Alcove
6. Ides Underneath

Order No Longer by Frank Ene On LP / CD / Download HERE

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