Ender Belongs To Me was first brought to my attention late last year by a fellow music writer who I’ve traded some back and forth tweets/emails with over the past few months. There wasn’t much information to go on, just a few songs that were posted up on bandcamp to check out. The project is anonymous, with both full-time members going under the psuedonym Peter Wiggin. I didn’t pay a ton of attention to it at first. It’s a bit chillwave with some folk influences, which can be interesting, but not really my cup of tea. Then they released a song called “New Light” as part of a project I’ve been working with called The Snake-a digital label for DIY bands (recently featured Chicago’s own The Canoes, and shortly Republic Of Lights). Unlike my initial listening, this song really caught me by surprise. With my new interest in the duo, I went back and checked out the work again.

There were a couple new tracks up that I hadn’t heard before when i made my return to their page, and it’s all pretty interesting music. One in particular, “Clouding,” is the one I’ll be sharing with you today. To call it chillwave wouldn’t be exactly right. More like dream-pop or a more elaborate slowcore. As I said, not something I would seek out on my own to hear, but when it’s done well it can be quite good. If you’re looking for some comparisons, I like to think Beck’s Sea Change album and Julee Cruise’s “Falling” would be a good mix of things that could add up to Ender Belongs To Me.

What strikes me about “Clouding,” and a couple of their other songs to a lesser degree, is that the music is almost just ambient sound layed over this poetry they’ve written. The lyrics on this song, and also “New Light,” are beautiful and could stand on their own as fine work:

WILL YOU SEE ME WHEN ALL THE LIGHT GOES FLEEING FROM THE WORLD. WILL YOU HEAR ME WHEN MOUNTAINS FALL AND RIVERS TURN TO GOLD. WILL YOU FEEL ME WHEN FEELING LOSES MEANING IN THE SNOW. WILL YOU KNOW ME WHEN THERE IS NOTHING LEFT FOR YOU TO KNOW. WILL YOU KNOW ME WHEN THERE IS NOTHING LEFT FOR YOU TO KNOW. HE SAW THE BLUE DROP OFF INTO NOTHING. THEY RAN AWAY TO BE APART. THE RED ATE AWAY WHAT WAS BLACK AND WHITE. THEY RAN AWAY TO BE A PART OF THE PAST. HE GLIDED THROUGH THEIR EYES, LEFT NONE TO SEE BEHIND. FLEW SO HIGH HE MADE THE CLOUDS CRY, GLIDED THROUGH THEIR EYES, LEFT NONE TO SEE BEHIND.

That’s the full lyrical content of the song. It’s stark and makes it’s point concisely. I don’t know which Peter Wiggin wrote it, but a congratulations to you. When a song is well-written, sometimes the music can do more hampering than helping. Ender Belongs To Me do a good job of balancing the weight between the music and the words to create a great sense of empathy throughout the running time of “Clouding.” The female vocals of Alexandra Lowell add a bittersweet angle to the song, giving it a conversational tone that builds the tension and keeps your ears rapt.

The duo will be putting out an EP shortly, and you can find much of their work on bandcamp. For more info on the duo, check out their facebook page as well as this short piece by Earmilk.