The second Espers album, ‘The Weed Tree’, was released in 2005. It was a nearly inevitable endeavour for the group, made almost entirely of cover material but the traditional folk songs - ‘Rosemary Lane’ and ‘Black Is the Color’ - were paired with songs by Nico, Michael Hurley and even Blue Oyster Cult, making for an oblique run through eclectic aspects of the past that succeeded due to Espers’ thorough re-imagining of the material in their own image. The addition of current members Helen Espvall on cello and Otto Hauser on drums and percussion upped the alchemy of the band to its most potent, making music that drew from tradition but making it new at the same time.
Espers, existing in between places, were a part of a flow of ideation that has as much to do with revelations from the 70s or 60s - with all the decades of the last century, really - as it does with the current expressions in favour of selfhood and safety that are struggled over today. Their music has retained a mysterious, unknowable vitality that, in the name of their original intention, continues to express Espers’ individualism, optimism and deeply empathetic soul.
