Somewhere seaside and probably eastward, July never dies. A complex network of straits and rapids gives way to this land of eternal summer, the bustle and color of Maps and Atlases. Rickshaws crisscross, packed with honeycomb and acacia root. Madras chintzes billow like capes, pinned to clotheslines and low branches. Here their music digs into the most ephemeral pleasures, dusts them off and shines them up to share.
“Pigeon,” for example, pauses in the moment between a young woman’s skipping by and the breeze of her scent a few seconds behind, soft gardenia. Elliptical flutters of guitar peruse the ruffled tiers of her gypsy skirt. Wrapped in linen and sun she bares her ankles, hard and brown like pistachio shells. Intrigued, Erin Elders stirs his mulberry vocals, the color of port. His voice sounds bottled, the cork still sealed and steeped in tannins. All the while a bevy of coastal percussion hikes up the woman’s hems, alighting in a perky flounce. Xylophone toes scatter atop a mortar of sax as she maneuvers the stone pathways of this coastal town. The horns, the winds, the time blow on by. Bask in Maps & Atlases when they drift to Middle East Upstairs on August 11.