The band name makes you think of collectors of precious stones and seems wholly appropriate for a record you feel deserves to be kept in a safe place and only brought out for special occasions.
The members of Gem Club number just two - Christopher Barnes
(voice/ piano) and Kristen Drymala (cello) and their debut EP was recorded in a "second bedroom" somewhere in Somerville, Massachusetts.
It begins with 50 seconds of bells and bird song, a brief prelude to five songs which are simply breathtaking in their beauty and simplicity.
First up is Flax:
"He came in a wave / his wings were full of songs / white and unafraid / I wish I had known him then / I wish I was more like him"
This, along with the other songs, effortlessly evokes a dreamy state wherein you try, and fail, to connect with people and places lost in time and memory.
In terms of texture, and with the same aching sense of loss, it made me think of Neil Young's Birds (from After The Goldrush) while, a perhaps more obvious connection would be to the magic and other-worldliness of Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs.
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The lyrics are both magical and haunting:
"I waited for the world to flood my mind" (Sevens)
"I cannot recognize myself" (Animals)
"Everything acid and sad / everyone distant and hard" (Acid and Everything)
There's strangeness too, leaving you to imagine what may connect the perfume and gun powder of Spines.
Not a line out of place. Not a single note too many. It is poetic and totally absorbing, casting a spell that at just under twenty minutes, is all too brief.
If this record leaves you unmoved, you have no heart.
Gem Club's website
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