Sashiko is an embroidery style with a long history in Japan. Translating to English as "little stabs," the style originated in the Edo period as a way of mending and fortifying clothing to make them warmer and more durable, but is better recognized today as a distinctive decorative pattern with a running stitch and an unsevered connection to that nation's past. I don't have a statement from Small Opera's band leader Jason Bienia as to why this was the right title for the Vancouver group's latest LP, but I might as well take a stab at it (*rim-shot*). Small Opera perform a highly resonant, calming, and reflective variety of indie pop that could easily be described as a trimmed, spruced and enduringly wholesome variation on The War on Drugs. Extolling a socially cordial but uncommonly relaxed adaptation of North American folk, dusted with country charisma, and shaped and shaved into angular patterns from encounters with '80s new wave such as Talk Talk and (and I mean this without any attempt towards humor) Japan, Small Opera open an intimate but abiding space for deliberation on life's priorities and the blessings that bind our layed odds together like a bushel of burgeoning wildflowers. Pinning concepts and tenors of thought into harmonious patterns is a large part of the interplay of Jason's voice and lyrics and the pervasively rhythmic grooves that undergird his phrasing as the band darns concurrent seams in the air to mend together a channel through which a restorative jetstream of sound may flow. An inviting ephemeral brook descending from a cavern on high, whose lip you can swing your legs over and allow them to dangle in the pitted black of its origin point, etching the dark with your eyes like chalk on slate, wanding in thought but not wanting for direction. I suppose the stitching metaphor comes into play here, where Small Opera prompts us each to see in their lyrics and performance, a patchwork of ourselves, begging to be reassembled and reconfigured into a durable and modest whole personage that we can confidently bare to the world. We each must at some point make a small effort to understand our path to the here and now, following the strands of our lives backward across its winding patterns to the start and then relaying back to our current moment of decision- our next footprint in the sand, a seed to sow, a stitch to be sewn- realizing that the longer we peirce and pull and try, the more chances we will have to make something beautiful of our lives.
