by Anna Solomon (@chateau.fiasco)
Much of Madeline Johnston’s music under the name Midwife feels like a musical representation of a “liminal space,” a place, or the idea and image of a place, that is eerily empty. A seemingly endless hallway. A playground or neighborhood street devoid of children playing. The scenes portrayed are rarely remarkable, but their ability to simultaneously create forlorn nostalgia and unease is. Johnston captures this same feeling with arrangements that rarely get busier than a couple guitars and a drum machine, and simple, repetitive, and despondent lyrics which are filtered into an otherworldly, ethereal whisper (which Johnston replicates live by singing into a telephone).
In 2020, Johnston met Angel Diaz, who releases music under the name Vyva Melinkolya. They quickly became friends and began working together on what would become Orbweaving the following year at Johnston’s New Mexico studio. Diaz’s more traditional shoegaze sound maps perfectly onto Johnston’s self-described “heaven metal.” The arrangements are more lush and layered than any previous Midwife project; the drum loops generally sound more organic, the guitars are richer, and more synth countermelodies pop in to keep interest. Despite all this, the music still never quite feels grounded. The slow-building centerpiece “NMP” is the best example of how Orbweaving gracefully floats along, even with crunchy guitars and heavy drums.
“Hounds of Heaven” is a more direct and conventionally structured track that would probably translate like a 90s alt-rock hit by The Smashing Pumpkins or Hum, were it given a more traditional rock arrangement. With the drum loop pushed to the back of the mix, the song isn’t heavy in the way those bands are. This track also may be the best example of how nicely Diaz and Johnston’s voices blend, especially with Johnston’s signature vocal production.
Orbweaving is a slow album, arguably a “slowcore” album, but that doesn’t mean it’s entirely doom and gloom. Opener “Miss America” is hardly upbeat, but it establishes a surprisingly hopeful tone for the project. Synths glide like lap steel from outer space between verses about learning to move through the world, over simple major arpeggios.
Most of the lyrics are more like mantras or affirmations than descriptions: things like “No more pain / I promise to be good” on “NMP.” The only exception to this is on “Plague X,” with scenes of “Whitest sand / Blackest skies / Brittle bodies.” Even as the bleakest piece lyrically, it’s the record’s most singable song, with a final stretch filled with uplifting waves of guitar and synth.
The closing title track is less of a culmination than it is an uneasy sendoff into the unknown. The 12-minute ambient piece has no lyrics, melody, or rhythm. Like the floating door on the cover, it’s unclear where it leads, and on can feel like a letdown upon the first couple listens, but ultimately, Orbweaving is an album that is supposed to leave you adrift and uncertain. Like a liminal space, or the empty New Mexico roads Johnston and Diaz wandered looking for snakes, the record is often eerily empty and offers no clear destination, but it’s nonetheless a beautiful, unnerving, and captivating journey.