On paper, Brooklyn-based electronic duo Ejecta seem to fit the criteria as the next hip thing. Singer/songwriter Leanne Macomber also plays with Neon Indian; multi-instrumentalist Joel Ford is one-half of production team Ford & Lopatin. Their debut album, Dominae, is stuffed with plenty of shiny, slinky sounds to score a neon-lit nightclub or a contemplative after-dusk drive. Making note of such an obviously appealing creative pedigree with a reflexively raised eye—they played their first concert during last month’s CMJ Marathon, by the way—wouldn’t be out of the question for listeners who’ve become deadened to the relentless cycle of new bands you've just got to hear. But Ejecta go beyond surface poise and artifice by building a complex world out of an imagined narrator’s deepest longings, imbuing an at-times generic sound with real emotional weight.
At face value, Dominae mostly follows a template: Macomber’s voice is usually locked in at “breathy,” each song can usually be described as “synthpoppy,” and if you close your eyes, the whole thing might zip by as an amorphous lump of gliding synthesizers, electronic squiggles, and percussion bounces. But Ejecta is more than a name that sounds like it could’ve been yanked from any number of medium talent trip-hop acts from the 90s—it’s a character, one who Macomber has described as a release valve for her deepest impulses and someone who must always appear nude to further double down on that transparency. It makes sense when you focus on her lyrics, in which she admits feelings of shame, elation, lust, and despair. The exact scenario of what's got her twisted is sometimes vague, but the lack of descriptive detail creates a distance befitting of powerful emotions reduced to their essence. (One might suggest that Macomber hardly needs to invent a character to project this kind of nakedly honest songwriting, but a sales pitch is a sales pitch.)
Where the concept of Ejecta best manifests itself, though, is in Macomber and Ford’s wholehearted embrace of sounds that might scan as completely cheesy if paired with more banal sentiments. Two examples are the glistening introduction to “Mistress”, which sounds like an outtake Styx might’ve recorded on some beautifully coke-dusted summer night, or the sparkling disco of “Jeremiah”. If you’ve yet to be convinced of the spiritually purifying effect a synthesizer can have, this might not be the record to do it, but what the duo accomplish with a tonally consistent palette is at times astonishing. “It’s Only Love” navigates the complex balance of power and intent in any complicated relationship as Macomber finds the midpoint between coy and chilly over a crystalline instrumental. “Afraid of the Dark” opens on her voice as she solemnly narrates what sounds like a bittersweet breakup—again, the details are vague—and slowly builds momentum until you can imagine the band in blurred, beatific motion as she repeats a phrase that might function as Dominae’s thesis: “This warm heart's afraid of the dark/ Never gonna stop, I’m never going to conquer.”
Through the album, Macomber sings of love as an almost physical currency, something that’s taken or given with intentions that aren’t always on the level. There’s more to admitting your deepest desires and fears than just saying them out loud, of course, and the record’s most affecting moments are when it fully commits to its confessions—when you can believe that she, or Ejecta, is singing as truthfully as possible without drowning. It might take a moment to sink in, but it's there.
