Mini-album (4 tracks/31 minutes). A year after resurfacing into memory with Detrola (Silver Mountain, 06) and with eyes set firmly on the next step, XMMER, which should be seeing the light soon, His Name Is Alive present four new songs exclusively through Acuarela, recorded in their living room in Livonia, Michigan. Firefly Dragonfly is a laid-back, acoustic mannered pitstop for the quixotic North-American band. Five years ago Warren Defever understood how irony and contingency were out of bounds in his life: “Last Night”, the album, turned out to be too prophetic a title to be true, but in fact, it would be the last night that his band would spend under the shelter of 4AD. The lack of commercial success demonstrated by insufficient sales, according to the London-based label, and the poor response the previous two records had brought up among followers ended a relationship that had lasted over twelve years. Suddenly, Defever rose with the slashing rock sound that was “Detrola”. The album rescues a sound that might have easily linked it to Ft. Lake (4AD, 1998) and that managed to baffle and audience that conjugated both old admirers and new faces, relinquishing the soul essence of his two previous albums and exchanging Lovetta Pippen's gospel flavored voice for the caress of Andy FM's (who happens to be the cousin of Karen Oliver who used to sing in the band). FM's vocal soaks each syllable of the four songs that comprise this record in candor. “Firefly Dragonfly” contains a warm atmosphere, an undiscovered guise of His Name Is Alive, an intimate side. Listening to this half hour unveils a single live recording session, the testimony of an encounter between Defever and a bunch of friends under the directive set by acoustic guitar and piano. This mini-album opens softly with a cover of Sufjan Stevens' "The Dress Looks Nice On You" (baptized here as "I Can See A Lot Of Light In You"). It's an imagined vision of the Stevens original, imbued here by Andy FM's subtle accent, with much sparser & simpler arrangements, with no banjo. "Come Out The Wilderness" begins with what sounds like an acoustic variation of Neu!, lain over harp frills, to then evolve into reflection of a traditional folk song. "There's Something Between Us And He's changing My Words" appeared on “Home Is In Your Head” (4AD, 1991), His Name Is Alive's second record, and what was a studio experiment smoothly becomes a campfire song with Jessica Bailiff's vocals and under the cloak of a harmonium. It's a delicate song, with a feeling of uncertainty surrounding all of it, entangling each chord. After it, what was one day meant as a tribute to Alice Coltrane appears here in the form of a beautiful fourteen-minute duet between piano and harp, flowing freely until the end of the record.
01. I Can See A Light In You 02. Come Out Of The Wilderness 03. There Something Between Us And He's Changing My Words 04. Send Me A Dragonfly
