May Rio - Elegant Ensemble (2024) Hi-Res

May Rio is a solo project. For her, the consummation of ‘solo’ is handled with surprising results. At one moment, May Rio is a band with drums, synths, and guitars. A club says no drums? Fine. Now her set is arranged for cello, piano, saxophone, and backing vocals. It is this latter rearrangement of her songs that became her Elegant Ensemble, debuting in small clubs across New York City after her sophomore LP, French Bath, was released last spring.

May Rio’s music is what May Rio says it is. These studio recordings are clever interventions into what a catalog of songs can look and sound like. We know from covers like Devo’s “Satisfaction” (made famous first by The Rolling Stones) that re-recording can effectively un-’cover’ new meanings of songs past. Across Elegant Ensemble, May Rio effectively covers herself with similarly inspired results.

Few things expose quality songwriting quite like removing the studio-sheen of contemporary production. Usually, such defoliation unveils vacuity. May’s songs, no less stripped, emerge as newly refined instead. Somewhere between Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain and a twee-less Regina Spektor; Elegant Ensemble is like a backpacker carrying only bare necessities on a cross-continental trip.