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[luuurien]

Indigo De Souza - All of This Will End

(Indie Rock, Singer/Songwriter, Indie Pop)

With exceptionally raw songwriting packing an incredible amount of emotion, Indigo De Souza’s third album confronts toxic relationships and traumatic scars from her youth in a more direct fashion than ever before. Now knowing how she wants to be loved and refusing to let negative emotions sit inside her, All of This Will End’s explosive songcraft makes her music hit harder than ever.

☆☆☆☆☆

There’s a moment in All of This Will End where the power of Indigo De Souza’s music is more immediate than ever before. As the plush electronic drums and jangly guitars start up in The Water, you can feel the perspective shift to a snapshot of her past, comforting but with an awareness of being back in a more turbulent point in her life. It’s an effortlessly beautiful song, one that basks in the warmth of childhood innocence in an album where anger and desire tend to rule, and it’s this balance of resignation and rage Indigo De Souza’s third album perfects. Where her debut caught her in the midst of overwhelming darkness, and Any Shape You Take chronicled self-discovery and the rush of feeling every emotion that comes your way, All of This Will End seeks growth through purging all the feelings she’s been holding in, acidic indie rock where quick flashes of fury dance around intimate scenes of De Souza’s youth. It’s a fabulously dynamic album where De Souza’s exceptionally-pared down songwriting packs an incredible amount of emotion, committed performance and a new production team letting her music bounce between styles without having to bend her songwriting to it - the sound of these songs aims to compliment her earnest songwriting rather than force it to fit in a box. As quickly as the album comes to a close, every feeling of hers has been fully transferred to you.

With a new sound after the departure of Any Shape You Take bandmates Owen Stone and MJ Lenderman- an event that entirely shook De Souza after starting to feel that those people were the only people for {her}” - All of This Will End lovingly embraces the gauzy dance-pop and country twang pieces of Any Shape You Take hinted at never fully explored. Compare the album’s first two singles, Younger & Dumber and Smog, and you can find the intersection where the album’s two thematic paths cross. The former is a haunting country ballad built on a foundation of strummed acoustic guitar and warm piano, a direct conversation between De Souza and her younger self, how the abuse she endured in the past so deeply changed her into who she is today even if she knows she deserved none of it (“You came to hurt me in all the right places / Made me somebody / …I didn’t know better”). Smog exists back in that past, De Souza protected by moonlight as she escapes the pressures around her through carefree synthpop (“I want to face it head-on / But it’s so easy to turn it away / …I don’t know how to turn around if I’m not ready”). The rest of the songs fit largely into those two categories with De Souza’s perspectives on her past and present self always in the mix, the new doors opened up for her music making each one feel special and cared for, be it the heavy riffage and headphone-crushing percussion that manifests feelings of overwhelming insecurity in early highlight Wasting Your Time or the title track’s breezy indie rock where not having any answers allows her to love and take care of herself regardless of where she’s struggling (“There’s only love / There’s only moving through and trying your best / Sometimes it’s not enough / Who gives a fuck, all of this will end”); by providing many iterations of herself in All of This Will End, she makes an immensely comforting album in its ability to own all its emotions, letting you into her world and see her forgive and heal from her past without letting those who hurt her escape from accountability.

Her straightforward emotional storytelling works as well on short tracks as much as it does on the album’s two slow-burns, Not My Body and Younger & Dumber. Sequencing-wise, they take up an eight minute stretch at the album’s end that initially feels at odds with the brisk pace and urgent feel of the previous songs, still dealing with heavy emotion but choosing to wade in them, slow and reflective in ways her music rarely has been up to this point. De Souza’s songs have always been deeply attuned to her emotional states both euphoric and miserable, but there’s something fresh and cutting about the way she leans into the crushing midsection of Not My Body, letting the fourth between the two notes she sings in the first three lines of the final verse ascend quickly before slowly sliding down the final half of each line, her desperation to escape the physical limitations of her body coming to its breaking point before the last half of the song smoothly drifts out into a smoky alt-country sunset. These two extended moments of songcraft give even greater meaning to the songs before them: the panic attack at the center of Parking Lot is only two and a half minutes and Always’ gutting attempt to make sense of her father’s extended absence in her childhood are that much more important when it’s clear just how present and heavy those feelings are within her in each. All of This Will End doesn’t mind lingering, but it’s De Souza’s choosing of when to sit with feelings and when to let them pour out that the album earns such a beautiful sense of wholeness, content with not having a final answer as long as she’s moving forward into a better future.

Like her previous albums, All of This Will End deals with De Souza’s internal world and how devoting yourself to love both breaks and reconstructs you, but what has changed is how her existential dread now gives her a reason to go as big as possible, musical colors more vivid than ever and writing with a desire to do nothing but say exactly how she feels with nothing in between you and her. Her ease at describing feelings so simply without losing an edge to her writing is second to none, and her passionate performances that go from elated to terrified in the blink of an eye keep you right next to her throughout every moment. The core of De Souza’s music is in honesty and expressing every feeling without fear, and All of This Will End’s willingness to let every version of De Souza exist together gives every song the opportunity to pull you into her world for a bit, admire the beauty of it all, and move forward into the future alongside her. It may be short, but that makes cherishing every second that much more valuable.

#indigo de souza #all of this will end #saddle creek #alt-country #indie pop #indie rock #singer/songwriter #synthpop #2023 #10/10 #album review #album reviews #new music #music review #2023 music #luuurien

[luuurien]

Jeff Rosenstock - HELLMODE

(Power Pop, Pop Punk, Indie Rock)

With a luxurious studio and financial support from Polyvinyl, Jeff Rosenstock lowers the heat on his fifth studio album so gorgeous textures and catchy indie rock can take precedent. Despite HELLMODE’s shift in sound and resources, Jeff Rosenstock remains confident in his sharp-witted, reflective punk rock.

☆☆☆☆½

Jeff Rosenstock’s never made concessions to the music industry, even with Emmy nominations under his belt. The now 41-year-old musician has been a lynchpin in modern punk, from Bomb the Music Industry!’s rebellious power pop to his ska-punk collective The Arrogant Sons of Bitches fusing atmospheric and playful post-2000s indie rock with skank rhythms and melodic hardcore riffing, his solo career starting with 2015’s We Cool? taking those core values to even greater heights. But after over eight years of creating music on his own terms, Rosenstock took up the opportunity to record his next album at EastWest studios, a recording space best known for fostering the luxurious pop of Pet Sounds and I Will Always Love You, experimenting with echo chambers and studio trickery to give HELLMODE a distinct shine. It’s easily his prettiest album to date, replacing the blown-out mixing of 2020’s NO DREAM with glittery lead guitars and sugar-coated performances, HELLMODE Rosenstock’s answer to the past few years of lockdown and massive social upheavals. Where his last album sought respite in disorientation, HELLMODE aims its efforts towards Rosenstock’s privileges and paranoia to use them as fuel for the long haul. Rosenstock’s been fighting for independence and community since the start of his career, and expensive studio sessions have only served to heighten his message.

Despite the pristine mixing and catchy, melody-focused instrumentation, HELLMODE isn’t far from Rosenstock’s past albums: HEAD’s ferocious synth punk comes right out of the gate three minutes into the album; LIKED U BETTER nods to ska with its offbeat guitars and vocal chants; the seven-minute closer 3 SUMMERS is one of the loveliest songs in Rosenstock's discography; his use of EastWest’s resources to heighten the effect of his already fantastic power pop rather than try and reinvent it results in tamer but songs able to balance warmth and clarity with the euphoria rush of double-time rhythms and syncopated basslines. He also leans further into acoustic cuts and smooth indie rock to create distinct peaks and valleys rather than his usual barrage of killer punk rock, HEALMODE a sensitive singer/songwriter track allowing him to explore his new relationship with Los Angeles after relocation from his longtime home of Brooklyn, city rain and pine needles revealing a romanticism and gentleness rarely seen in his music, while something like the mellow first half of DOUBT slowly builds into its explosive final quarter, sludgy changes and one final crescendo into double time a glorious payoff from Rosenstock’s reserved and careful performance at the beginning. HELLMODE doesn’t use all the extra production polish and instrumental details to distract you from the core of these songs, Rosenstock instead keeping the music simple so all the extra effects stay exciting and fresh - he may be recording in the same studio that brought about Let’s Get It On, but he uses all those extra flavors sparingly.

Fitting to HELLMODE's musical renovations, Rosenstock’s writing finds itself less anxious and detached, focused on the future and continuing to fight against systemic injustices despite how slow progress can be. WILL U STILL U opens the album with questions of commitment and forgiveness that permeate the entire tracklist, its overarching worries of how far someone can extend their understanding before needing to fight back (“Will you still love me after I’ve fucked up? / After I’ve shown I don’t deserve your trust / …And would you transcend time and space so you can punch my stupid face”) brought about in GRAVEYARD SONG’s calls for destruction and HEALMODE’s desire for simple, uncomplicated connection, but also in the exhaustion from watching the world continue to spiral in the exhilarating skate punk highlight FUTURE IS DUMB and HEAD’s fiery outpour of anger towards republican pundits and violence against protestors, Rosenstock aware of the resources and opportunity he has and the responsibility inherent to it. He directly speaks of that culpability in tracks like 3 SUMMERS and FUTURE IS DUMB, the acute awareness of how your privileges affect others and trying to do as little damage as possible making Rosenstock’s most electrifying songs to date, the same language and message he’s been pushing since the start of his career given a new frame of reference as he entrusts his music to carry those ideas further than he could alone. It’s no surprise, then, that despise HELLMODE being the most expensive album of his career, Rosenstock still released it entirely for free a day early on his Quote Unquote Records website, still championing for artistic independence even with all the other worries hanging over him - he may not be able to change the entire world, but still takes every small chance to do what he believes is right.

It’s easy to imagine any of HELLMODE’s songs slotting somewhere on one of his previous albums, but the album remains distinct in how its eleven tracks reign Rosenstock in together, a prettier and less overwhelming album from him than ever before that’s still unpredictable and fun. He uses the extra funding given to him by Polyvinyl how he wants to, creating some of the loveliest pop punk in recent years that’s true to him in every way, doubtful and comedic and full of energy with excellent musicianship to back it all up. It’s not particularly surprising hearing him sing about the music industry or relationships or capitalism, but HELLMODE engages with the fuller spectrum of Rosenstock’s emotions, exploring his convictions through both furious punk rock and contemplative fingerpicked guitar, his storytelling sent through more than the usual power pop and indie rock and coming out the other side with one of his strongest releases yet. HELLMODE is simple, but that’s why it works: Jeff Rosenstock’s always known his music’s purpose, and what’s here is no different. His explosive, existential calls to action remain necessary as ever, and a new coat of paint is all he needed to make HELLMODE this year’s premier rock album. If you’ve liked Jeff Rosenstock before, there’s everything to love about HELLMODE.

#jeff rosenstock #hellmode #polyvinyl #indie rock #pop #pop punk #power pop #punk #rock #singer/songwriter #2023 #9/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #music reviews #new music #new albums 2023 #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Jonah Yano - Portrait of a Dog

(Jazz Pop, Neo-Soul, Singer/Songwriter)

Padded by BADBADNOTGOOD’s rich and warm jazz stylings, Portrait of a Dog captures multiple kinds of grief in one marvelous hour, Jonah Yano’s rush to immortalize family history and heal from heartbreak allowing for gentle folk meditations and heavier jazz pop jams to hold equal weight.

☆☆☆☆

Named after a painting his ex-partner made, Portrait of a Dog is in a constant rush to catalog as much of Jonah Yano’s memory as possible. It’s an album woven around two different kinds of grief that don’t always make their presence clear, heartbreak from both the lingering hurt of a past relationship and watching his grandparents’ memory fade the foundation of everything Yano creates, Portrait of a Dog’s rich neo-soul arrangements padding for the toughest topic matter he’s breached yet. Across its 12 songs and 50 minute runtime, Yano is able to expel all his emotions without letting the music drag behind him, Toronto jazz heavyweights BADBADNOTGOOD at the production helm to give Yano’s stories compositional strength and a slight dreaminess for his abstracted, cloudy songwriting to bounce off, Portrait of a Dog grounded by intense emotions Yano allows to drift about the air. For how harrowing his inspirations are, Yano and BBNG keep the compositions fluffy and warm, restrained when the focus is on Yano’s voice and blooming into the BBNG’s ecstatic soul jazz when all his thoughts have been laid out, bringing balance to the album Yano uses to keep himself stable while recounting the waves of emotion that came over him in the aftermath of visiting his grandparents and working through a breakup at once. Loss permeates all of Portrait of a Dog, but Yano is set on capturing those bruises at their most tender, unafraid to look his grandparents' health in the eye and hold onto his memories of them along the way, his reserved performances situating him near heartbreak without forcing him to sing of it outright. Portrait of a Dog shrouds its stinging core in heavenly neo-soul and inky songwriting, but every emotion is deeply felt through the beautiful arrangements and gentle pace. BADBADNOTGOOD’s production is Portrait of a Dog’s beating heart, but rather than the mystical chamber jazz of their 2021 release Talk Memory, they return closer to the sound of IV tracks like In Your Eyes and Cashmere and their dusty soul jazz, straightforward composition roadmaps where the verse-chorus-verse structure is accentuated with instrumentation that wanders around those boundaries. In the places where Yano’s voice drops away, the band are able to express spiraling grief in ways his words cannot: Leland Whitty’s rich tenor sax tone makes for a wonderfully melancholic lead voice in the ending section of Haven’t Haven’t, and closing track The Ordinary Is Ordinary Because It Ordinarily Repeats sounds like it could have been an outtake from Talk Memory as its stumbling percussion and glowing improvisational work from Whitty ends Portrait of a Dog without Yano’s voice at all, him and BBNG instead choosing to let the album drift away into tender soul jazz that doesn’t seek to act as a definitive end point for Yano’s story - he’s continuing to process the massive holes in his familial history and how much he’s able to preserve of it, and Portrait of a Dog is just one departure point into the next chapter of Yano’s life and artistry. It’s those imperfections and the album’s refusal to do everything in one go that the album uses as an emotional engine: early highlight Always presses on its 3/4 waltz feel with Yano’s sharp vocal delivery and regal string arrangements from Eliza Niemi for a song that’s both heavenly on the ears and tense on the heart; The Speed of Sound! cuts out much of the thick instrumentation to close out the A side of the album with trickling, abstracted neo-soul perfectly matched to the story Yano is telling. The music matches Yano's tangled emotions while simultaneously helping to bring clarity to him, and the resulting songs work perfectly to bring you close to his heart. Yano’s diaristic, often indirect songwriting fortifies the two separate losses he worked through while writing them, but his performances and specific lyrical moments still pierce right through the center of his soul. The title track is one of the few songs here solely focused on his breakup, the glowing painting that adorns the album cover one of the few memories he allows himself to keep of his last relationship  (“Well, there's your portrait of a dog / And the apartment is a mess / So why can't I remember you?”), Yano’s smoothly fingerpicked guitar and BBNG’s smooth backing instrumentation blooming a perfect slice of moody, introspective jazz pop. By knowing all the different dynamics he’s looking to parse through with Portrait of a Dog, Yano’s songwriting is able to sprawl without becoming emotionally distant: his cover of Vashti Bunyan’s Glow Worms is dark and brooding, Bunyan’s sentimental lyrics turned so slightly sour by the sorrow of the album’s core themes, the song clever situated between the heartbreak of watching his grandparents’ health decline he sings of in So Sweet (“We'll all sit down to eat / Remember where you sit this time / You're opposite of me”) and the Sea Oleena-assisted ethereality of Quietly, Entirely is absolutely brilliant, Oleena’s glistening ambient stylings melting beautifully into the jazzy inflections of BBNG’s arrangements and Yano’s gentle singing. Though Portrait of a Dog's lush soul compositions and Yano’s dreamy songwriting may paint the album as a plush, cloudy listen, it’s impossible to hear a song like Song About the Family House or Haven’t Haven’t and not feel Yano’s immediate desire to hold onto as much of his history as he can even as his family disappears right in front of him, his cryptic songwriting keeping his pain from flowing over and creating a measured but passionate listen. Portrait of a Dog's shaggy, extensive examination of all the pain Yano has recently crossed paths with is highly dynamic and valiant in its approach to heartbreak, delicate as it tries to both collect as many memories as it can without pushing Yano past his emotional limits. Through its rich soul jazz arrangements and fantastic group of performers, the album creates space for Yano to traverse the depths of his different relationships and what it’s like to both leave them and watch them start to disappear, Portrait of a Dog unafraid to mix multiple griefs into a singular thesis for Yano. As he archives his family history and attempts to recount romantic loss at the same time, Portrait of a Dog becomes an elegant and poignant exploration of how different kinds of pain subsume into each other; how part of healing from heartbreak is learning where each individual part of that sorrow lies and making an effort to understand and grow from all of them. Yano’s sentimental neo-soul couldn’t have been a more perfect place for him to do exactly that.

#jonah yano #portrait of a dog #innovative leisure #chamber jazz #jazz fusion #jazz pop #neo-soul #pop #singer/songwriter #sophisti-pop #soul #2023 #8/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Jessie Ware - That! Feels Good!

(Dance Pop, Disco, Funk)

Luxurious as its predecessor with red-hot sensuality as its guide, Jessie Ware’s follow-up to her 2020 juggernaut What’s Your Pleasure? features more live instrumentation, more expressive performances, and more glamorous disco fantasies. It’s classic, classy disco revival, and nearly every moment is a dream.

☆☆☆☆½

That! Feels Good! sounds expensive. It’s in the album’s DNA through the luxurious strings and live backing band and Jessie Ware’s magnificently trained voice, but also in the feel of it all, how the music transports you to her world of fruit innuendos and 70’s disco-funk and anthemic choruses until nothing else matters but the next beat to grace the dancefloor. Her music has always had romance as its guide - think back to her ravishing 2012 single Running or her smoky R&B hit Say You Love Me - but it wasn’t until 2020’s What’s Your Pleasure? she could show off a more expressive and distinctive side of her, stepping away from clean-cut pop soul and diving headfirst into swooning disco-pop, putting her music back in the spotlight her 2017 record Glasshouse produced relatively middling results. Now, with a balance in her life that’s strengthened every side of her, That! Feels Good! continues the work of her previous album with a greater connection to ‘70s disco foundations, linking with jazz-funk octet Kokoroko to bring a jolt of live band energy to her music while keeping in line with the tight and fast disco style of her previous release. It’s a wildly joyous and uplifting album that, unlike its predecessor, captures love rather than pining at it, Ware commanding the dancefloor with expertly crafted disco where surrendering to your immediate desires is the only concern; if love is the solution, Ware ensures it’s delivered in utmost glamour and excess.

From its first moments, That! Feels Good! makes it clear Ware is not here to linger: the opening title track packs food innuendos (“I gotta something to get you high / Sugar 'n' salt it, lick that lime / Lick, lick, lick, lick, lick, lick that, get in line!”), calls for gratification (“Freedom is a sound / And pleasure is a right!”), and sumptuous verses (“Every time I get a little bit of an inclination / You can throw me to the shock of a new sensation”) into its four-and-a-half minute runtime, laying the groundwork for the following songs and heading right into the heart of the nightlife. Ware has always been an exceptional vocalist with a propensity for both smooth jams and sing-your-heart-out anthems, but That! Feels Good! reveals her excellence as a performer, often playing the party host as much as she plays the singer on the stage - Shake the Bottle anchors itself in Grace Jones-esque speak singing with only the chorus fully sung and These Lips sends the album off with elegant strings and seductive spoken word - and it pulls you right into Ware’s fantasy like never before. The first seven tracks are a masterclass in pop album structuring, coming right out of the gate with the opening trio of the title track and album singles Free Yourself and Pearls before opening up with the Philly soul-indebted Hello Love, sitting squarely in the world of organic 70s disco and soul (save for the notes of garage house and europop in Free Yourself) but never sticking to a single style - Ware has done her homework in this era of underground dance. It’s not to say she’s the first to do this kind of pop revivalism, disco and dance pop have come back the past few years in all sorts of different forms from Dua Lipa’s crisp nu-disco to the glamorous ballroom of Beyoncé’s RENAISSANCE, but Ware opts for more directly retro sounds without too much touch-up, going for classic french touch on Freak Me Now and letting instrumentalists solo through sections of Begin Again and Beautiful People, staying far from being a rehash of old sounds by perfecting all the little details. It lacks some of the chillout, atmospheric warmth of its predecessor, but never before has Ware’s vision been so bold and in your face, That! Feels Good! guiding you through every step of the party from first stepping onto the dancefloor to sneaking away with a new lover to leaving at sunrise with the music still blaring behind you.

Her focus here is almost solely on physical desire, letting her need for touch propel Freak Me Now’s uninhibited house-pop and Pearls’ dance ‘til you drop diva house, but Ware’s music has never been unfocused, this turn away from What’s Your Pleasure?’s yearning for connection during pandemic lockdowns replaced with music that knows exactly what it wants and where to get it. Beautiful People makes it Ware’s mission to fit as many people into the party as she possibly can, fueled by cowbell and a peppy horn section and rejecting misery in favor of finding a new person to party with and pouring another drink, while Begin Again finds spiritual rebirth through a syncopated Latin disco groove and lush, elegant backing instrumentation, each finding euphoria their own ways while staying true to the inclusive, community ethos that ‘70s disco was built upon. Even Lightning, the album’s one slight misstep due to its trading of disco for the moody alt-R&B jams of her early albums, doesn’t lose a whole lot of magic, still functioning as a breath mark before the album comes to an end even if it’s too drastic a step away from everything before it. She doesn’t need to take up too much of your time because these 40 minutes are more than enough to get every idea of hers across - Ware the club diva, Ware the romantic dreamer, Ware the sexual temptress - and no time is wasted in that, Ware keeping the album focused and on a defined path from start to finish.

That! Feels Good! is the kind of party where everything seems to go right: the perfect amount of people, the right kind of drinks, the perfect lighting across the dancefloor, and the most welcoming host in the form of Ware. Her music may stay in one place, but it’s because she’s never sounded better than she does here, a smooth and singular listen with one goal it achieves with absolute precision - few pop albums, especially in this revivalist style, manage to be so refreshing and true to its roots at once. Balancing so many different ideas so effortlessly is a feat in itself, yet Ware makes That! Feels Good! exciting to come back to outside of its pure craftsmanship with her passion for her musical forbearers and how she carries their ideas forward. These songs are waiting for you to lose yourself inside their rich, timeless disco fantasies, and it’s impossible to resist Ware’s invitation to the party.

#jessie ware #that! feels good! #emi #dance #dance pop #disco #funk #house #pop #9/10 #2023 #album review #album reviews #music review #2023 music #new music #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Hitsujibungaku - our hope

(Indie Rock, Dream Pop, Shoegaze)

Heading down a more introspective and slow-paced road after 2020’s driving and intense POWERS, our hope sees the Japanese rock trio at their most subdued and blurry-eyed place to date. Though these songs take longer to settle, the impact of Hitsujibungaku’s sensitive dream pop has only grown exponentially.

☆☆☆☆½

There are quite a few things that separate Hitsujibungaku from many of their dream pop peers, but the biggest one is patience. Where much of the genre prides itself on immediately sweeping you up with goopy synth pads and guitars slathered in any and every effect pedal the band could get their hands on, Hitsujibungaku opts for a kind of slowness and contemplation more in line with sensitive indie rock or even dramatic post-rock at times, willing to evoke only the outlines of an atmosphere and what might lie inside it. That fogginess is what drives their latest release, our hope to such immense success, heading down a more introspective and slow-paced road after 2020’s driving and intense POWERS, searching for a sense of clarity through the blur of lurching, distorted guitars and the occasional intoxicating pop song everything Hitsujibungaku needs to make our hope their most heartfelt and well-rounded album to date despite the challenges making a dream pop album so vulnerable and unvarnished presents for them. our hope is Hitsujibungaku taking shoegaze and dream pop fundamentals and pointing them inwards, hints of dissonance and tension taking the band to new heights and revealing new skills for them as a trio. The tempos are slower and the compositions less dense, but our hope still has lots going on inside its patient dream pop tunes. hopi find itself in a tender 6/8 waltz driven by a hypnotic guitar lead and Moeka Shiotsuka’s reserved vocals, blooming in the chorus before slowly sliding back into the soft, intimate cove of the verses, but even bulkier highlights like パーティーはすぐそこ and ワンダー have a ring of fog surrounding them, clean but slightly overdriven guitars covering Shiotsuka’s reminisces on old memories and past loves in a perfectly fitting haze. Where POWERS’ euphoria occasionally took on a noise pop sensibility with fuzzier guitars and more explosive crescendos to contrast Shiotsuka’s restrained performances, our hope opts for a more homogeneous atmosphere, the driving chorus of 光るとき revealing itself behind each steady verse while unhurried highlights like 金色 and 予感 revel in their midtempo grooves and liquid guitars, our hope navigating less concrete roads than Hitsujibungaku’s previous projects but hitting all the same dopamine reserves. It can take time to acclimate to the mellow, often understated nature of these songs (in one case, くだらない, it even causes the band’s light to dim a considerable amount), our hope’s transition to softspoken indie rock never takes away the instrumental strength Histujibungaku’s music flourishes from. our hope also brings along with it a darkness Hitsujibungaku’s music usually only speaks of, injecting into the sound of their music and embracing bits of harmonic tension and textural coldness to match the album’s themes of faded love and the bleakness of the present without that romance. 金色’s gangly guitar leads sit loosely under a perfectly drowsy vocal performance and a sharp chromatic descend in the post-chorus, and even the sweeter back-end highlight OOPARTS pairs its muted synthpop verses with bursts of noisy guitar and a key change in the song’s second half, Hitsujibungaku holding onto their signature beauty but reconfiguring the ways they go about bringing it to life. In turn, the album is a bit of a slow ride overall - especially considering its near hour runtime - but our hope clearly isn’t aiming for an all-thrills experience, and the unhurried nature of the album brings out some of the warmest and most definitive tracks the band has put out yet. It’s different, but it’s always a joy. More restrained but just as impactful than anything they’ve done so far, our hope paints a delicate, gauzy picture of Hitsujibungaku exploring the sensitive outer edges of their sharp but colorful indie rock through the extra space afforded by slowing down and letting the music breathe at its own pace. The reward of listening to our hope is getting a deeper look into the trio as instrumentalists, how Yurika Kasai’s bass drifts in and out of sync with Shiotsuka’s guitar work and how vital a dynamic drummer like Hiroa Fudaka is to the band’s sound, the three of them as adept at bubblegum noise pop as they are gentle moments of lyrical intimacy and musical warmth. It’s not their most exciting album, but by the end of its divine hour, our hope ends up the most heartwarming and grounded release of theirs yet and further proof of their excellence within modern indie.

This review is part of the ALL I MISSED: 2022, where I review all the albums I didn't get to from last year.

#hitsujibungaku #our hope #self-released #dream pop #indie pop #indie rock #pop #rock #shoegaze #2022 #9/10 #album review #album reviews #2022 albums #music review #all i missed 2022 #luuurien

[luuurien]

Lil Yachty - Let’s Start Here.

(Neo-Psychedelia, Psychedelic Rock, Neo-Soul)

Though shaggy and not always able to pull you in with its songwriting, Let’s Start Here. is a compelling listen from beginning to end, Lil Yachty’s playful cloud rap transitioning into a psych rock project where his wandering lyricism and laidback performances bring out the best and the boring in him.

☆☆☆

By its very nature, Let’s Start Here. invites conversation: Lil Yachty, an artist known for his druggy, feel-good pop rap trying his hand at the brand of funk and pop-infused psychedelia that dominated much of the 2010s indie scene and has now become a trademark sound of modern alt-pop. It’s not too surprising of a shift, considering Yachty’s feature on a remix of Tame Impala’s Breathe Deeper and professed love of artists like Impala and MGMT, but Let’s Start Here. makes a mark through Yachty allowing himself to try out many different avenues of this psych-pop sound without losing his trademark eccentricities - there’s bits of disco, bits of slow paced psych rock, bits of gooey R&B, but it feels like Yachty to the core. If the source material is familiar, the way Yachty uses them surely isn’t, his autotuned warble and aloof lyricism giving these vibe-focused tunes a weightiness his past rap offerings never could, Let’s Start Here. relaxed with its presentation but honing in on Yachty’s vision in every moment. It might not always turn out with the fullness these claustrophobic mixes and massive instrumental swells try to pull out of him, but not once does Let’s Start Here. feel less than anything but an honest offering from Yachty, even if the hour length and shaggy arrangements across these fourteen songs keep the album from honing in on his vision and making it as concise and potent as the ambitions he has for it. Where the album succeeds is in letting Lil Yachty refresh his sound and keep a humid haze hanging over it all, Let’s Start Here. not particularly risky as a whole but still making this loose psychedelic soul/rock sound his own through their wider atmospherics and emphasis on space. Producers and writers well-known around the indie scene at this point are all around the album: Justin Raisen’s dense production and pristine engineering work for artists like Yves Tumor and Angel Olsen bring the heaviness needed for tracks like the BLACK seminole. and the ride- to hit with that sensual yet noisy psych-rock sound; Magdalena Bay’s sticky funk pop brings a bubblier energy to early highlight running out of time; Mac Demarco’s loose but thoughtful lyricism is all over his writing credits for :(failure(: and drive ME! crazy. On every song, there’s a hefty list of collaborators bringing it all together - this isn’t to say that Let’s Start Here. is entirely derivative, Yachty’s trippy vocal effects and willingness to let his sound roam keeps the album its own distinct listen - but you can easily hear where he’s pulling from in these songs, and it can make the listening experience a bit of a bore once the novelty of Yachty’s genre shift wears off and the songs themselves are all that’s left. It’s easy to buy Yachty in this psych-adjacent lane of pop and rock where hooks and solid song structures are still there with the drifting guitars and snappy percussion loops there to provide that dreamy flair, but it’s when he tries to go for the extremes that Let’s Start Here. exposes his long standing struggles as a songwriter and performer. If you’re going to go for something less melodic and more reliant on atmosphere and mood, you have to have the lyrics and vocal delivery to keep things interesting - magical moments happen every so often, but Yachty doesn’t course correct enough for those little hiccups to go unnoticed. When the songs stick their landings, they're easily some of the best of the year so far: drive ME crazy!’s roller-rink disco is bolstered by a magnificent Diana Gordon performance, while the brash performances and gloomy instrumentation on the maddening I’VE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!! and The Alchemist. feel like the peaks of a bad drug trip in the best way possible - Yachty’s never sounded quite so present and energized in his music before, and the songs are absolutely mesmerizing because of it . Even the poppier tunes on offer take advantage of Yachty’s floaty sound, the ride-’s glossy psych-pop accentuated by a killer Teezo Touchdown feature and running out of time’s plucky bassline matched with its funky horns and hypnotic drum groove, sitting comfortably in Let’s Start Here.’s sound while branching off the usual neo-psych path with heavier arrangements or fusion influences. Where the album struggles, though, is to make the rest of everything engaging as well, longer songs undercut by Yachty’s reserved vocals while tracks that are more middle ground with their tempo and composition don’t have anything exciting to offer: for as commendable tracks like the BLACK seminole. and WE SAW THE SUN! are for diving head first into atmospheric psych-rock, Yachty’s lyrics are too nonspecific to pull you in (“Love is not a lie / It just feels like a Tarantino movie scene,” he sings in the final verse of the BLACK seminole., gesturing at the off-kilter presentation often in Tarantino’s films but unwilling to try and write lyrics that have the same effect”) and the slower tempos leave room for a more dynamic vocal delivery he seems unwilling to try without potentially tarnishing the “vibe” of it all. That feel-over-songcraft dynamic is present all throughout Let’s Start Here., likely a result of his previous cloud rap offerings still lingering in the album’s new sound, and it leaves you wanting to be more immersed in Yachty’s world that so clearly has interesting paths to take - drive ME crazy! and I’VE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!! are vibrant and effortlessly absorbing slices of psychedelia - and with a near hour runtime, Let’s Start Here. begins to feel waterlogged and undercooked before you even reach the halfway point. There’s a lot of good within Let’s Start Here., but past the excitement of hearing Yachty do something so far removed from his previous music there’s not much here to keep you coming back. You can hear his influences so palpably in each track, and when only a handful of songs eclipse what his contemporaries have already done with unique genre blends (running out of time, drive ME CRAZY!) or intense and playful performances (the ride-, The Alchemist.), the vast majority of Let’s Start Here. is either too underperformed or too musically mangy to return to and continually be rewarded with excellent songcraft. But for all the rough patches scattered across Let’s Start Here., it’s still a joy to see an already-established artist fearlessly flip their sound and make quite a bit of magic along the way, Lil Yachty still on his way to making psych-rock entirely his own but undoubtedly paving a path of bold artistic choices few others would be willing to take. It’s messy, but it’s always passionate, Yachty’s drive to do more than ever truly what makes Let’s Start Here. such a delightful listen front to back. He knows what he wants, and he’s incredibly close to fully achieving it.

#lil yachty #let's start here #quality control #funk #neo-psychedelia #neo-soul #pop #psychedelic pop #psychedelic rock #psychedelic soul #rock #soul #2022 #6/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

José James - On & On

(Neo-Soul, Contemporary R&B, Soul Jazz)

Lending his sultry baritone vocals to a collection of Erykah Badu covers, José James’ latest album shows not only his vast knowledge of her discography but just how attuned he is to neo-soul tradition. These fresh takes on classic tracks hold onto that groovy, soul jazz sound while embracing younger musicians and modern jazz concepts.

☆☆☆☆

It’s hard to imagine an album of Erykah Badu covers going wrong, but only someone like José James could give it such warmth and moodiness. Though he arose years after Badu and her contemporaries built the foundations of groovy and atmospheric neo-soul through albums like Mama’s Gun and Brown Sugar, his work ever since 2008’s The Dreamer has been informed both by those past records and all the new ideas brought to jazz and soul throughout the 2010s: the growth of electronica-infused nu-jazz that snuck into 2013’s No Beginning No End, the explosion of glossy alt-R&B and trappy beats that became the foundation of 2017’s shaky but admirable Love in a Time of Madness, even the return to a more organic neo-soul palette on No Beginning No End 2 had hints of bubbly jazz fusion and contemporary pop balladry thrown into the mix alongside James’ romantic vocal jazz. What also happened in that time, though, was his newfound love of cover albums, able to both return back to his roots without the barrier of personal songcraft getting in the way to try his hand at smoky Billie Holiday tunes or the polished pop soul of Bill Withers, and On & On follows a similar trajectory in its renditions of classic Badu tracks. What brings this a step up from your usual cover album, though, is how James chooses to perform these tracks, bringing on saxophonist Ebban Dorsey and flautist/saxophonist Diana Dzhabbar to surge young blood through these decades-old tracks. The resulting songs stay true to all the things that made them great originally while embracing the many melodic and compositional avenues younger jazz artists have been laying on top of beloved standards for years now, On & On as much a tribute to Badu as it is a chance for Dorsey and Dzhabbar to work with one of the most prominent vocal jazz musicians working today. Covering songs has been a staple of jazz and soul for the entirety of their existence, but what’s always made it interesting is in how each artist chooses to make their take on any given track feel special and distinct from the source material without forgetting about it entirely. James does this by connecting Badu’s work to the sound he cultivated on albums like No Beginning No End or The Dreamer, mostly live instrumentation with few studio embellishments to get the rawest and most powerful sound he can. Right out of the gate, the opening cover of On & On opens with glorious, meterless interplay between Dorsey and Dzhabbar along with drummer Jhais Yorkley and virtuoso pianist Masayuki Hirano before moving into an unwound take on the song where the groove is just as present even as Yorkley’s drumming and chord tones from Hirano ebb and sway with a human looseness. The other six tracks work off a similar template and reshape it depending on the qualities of the original: Green Eyes keeps the ten minute runtime but trades the long vocal passages for solo sections Hirano and Dzhabbar make fantastic use of; Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long keeps the funky feel but lets go of the electronic vocal effects and chunky drum programming for a smoother, more fluid sound; Out My Mind, Just in Time condenses the original 10 minute version into a intimate two-minute interlude into finale Bag Lady with its gentler sound and flute/synth entanglements. There’s a sensitivity to James’ performances of these tracks that might not make for the most explosive tracks, but it ensures respect to Badu’s work is always present and that On & On can soak in the magnificence of her music while James’ sextet is playing it - you can feel how much passion he has for her music, and that’s the most important quality any cover album can have. There’s not a whole lot else to On & On, but it does everything a good cover album should do and doesn’t compromise any of Badu nor James’ artistic visions in order to make that happen. His love for Badu is evident, and compounded with the opportunity he gives young artists Dorsey and Dzhabbar to show their artistry and show what Badu’s music means to them, few moments of On & On are without spirit and strength. These leaner, loungier takes on Badu’s snappy neo-soul gives the songs a new energy while staying true to their core, tracing the path of Badu’s work decades ago but treating it to a lavish new blend of restrained vocal jazz that pulls the most out of her contemplative, dreamy lyricism. On & On knows every corner of Erykah Badu’s music, and it allows James’ work to become exceptional.

#jose james #on & on #rainbow blonde #contemporary r&b #funk #jazz #neo-soul #psychedelic soul #r&b #soul #soul jazz #vocal jazz #2023 #8/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #music reviews #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Belle and Sebastian - Late Developers

(Indie Pop, Singer/Songwriter, Twee Pop)

With limp production and carrying forward their most impersonal and faceless writing from A Bit of Previous, Late Developers is nowhere near an improvement for modern Belle and Sebastian. The songs range from boring to borderline unlistenable.

☆

Modern Belle and Sebastian hasn’t quite been my thing, but Late Developers pushes into a point of complete tiredness I can barely stand. Their last release, A Bit of Previous, seesawed between coffee shop jazz-lite and meandering folk pop, and though it wasn’t all too exciting there were moments of room-temperature sugar cookie pleasantness to just barely buoy its 48 minute runtime, and Late Developers follows by trying to play is even more plainly, lifeless attempts at funk rock and synthpop jammed next to some of their most awkward and uncharismatic singer/songwriter tunes ever, never engaging and shockingly stiff for a band who made their name in the mid-90s through wry and playful folk pop. It just doesn’t feel like a Belle and Sebastian album in any way - it might be an album under their name, but it seems over the years that the charm of their early years has largely dissipated and been replaced with wearier and darker adulthood struggles. Rather than leaning into that maturity, they try to fall back into their past and cause Late Developers to utterly fail as an album. In sound alone, Late Developers ranges from boring to borderline unlistenable. There are some decent cuts here - I like the misty synths and prominent bassline When We Were Very Young sports and When the Cynics Stare Back From the Wall is the closest they ever get to replicating the orchestral-kissed folk pop of their first few albums - but otherwise there’s not much of note across these 11 tracks. On the rock side of things are songs like Give a Little Time and So in the Moment, their jangly guitars and handclap rhythms like The Lumineers on Ambien with how hard they try to push this artificial happiness and turn out utterly void of any feeling, and on the poppier side are some of their worst songs in their over two decades as a band together, I Don’t Know What You See in Me fit for a pandering kids movie trailer and the ending title track employing gooey horns and woodwinds to try and get one last burst of energy from an album that was dead on arrival. Their attempts at funk rock through When You’re Not With Me and Do You Follow sound like your local bar band saying to themselves “hey, let’s try something a little different today!” and the pastoral baroque pop of Juliet Naked and Will I Tell You a Secret is drier than field dirt - as much as Belle and Sebastian try to revive their witty sound through new musical ideas, they don’t have the power or drive behind them to actually push into new territory, rather pawing at it and hoping to God that by some miracle these half-baked ideas are just barely possible to stomach. Their songwriting isn’t much better, either, occasionally cracking into the worries an artist of their age would have - their children’s futures, attempting to juggle their musical ambitions with family and new responsibilities, reminiscing on the past and how their new experiences have changed their perception of it - but largely Belle and Sebastian’s songwriting falls somewhere between anonymous and a messy attempt to revive their past. When the Cynics Stare Back From the Wall sounds the most like an old Belle and Sebastian song, but the writing lacks any of that flair and subtlety, Stuart Murdoch singing lines like “If you keep making the same mistakes over / You're like a puppy with a broken leg” and “When there's a man around, she flirts like a child” and trying his absolute hardest to make them land despite how weird and unflattering it is just to read, let alone sing. The aforementioned drag that is I Don’t Know What You See in Me is absolutely treacherous with its “la-ba-dee, la-daba-da” post-chorus and pointless verses (“Did you listen to my breath? / 'Cause there's something in the air / And your love is all I need / For your love is true indeed”), and The Evening Star sports one of the most cringeworthy lines on the album with “I knew you when I was a queer fish,” Late Developers lacking anything of interest in its lyrical department to match how lifeless the music itself is. There’s never a moment where they try to pull you into their world, and I’m almost thankful for that considering how little the album brings to the table. Late Developers is just not good. Belle and Sebastian haven’t sounded so tired before, and the effect of it is immediately felt from the second the album starts, the pent-up energy and thoughtful songwriting of the past evaporated and leaving only an outline of the ideals the band used to strive for with each release. It’s boring to listen to, and compounded with their weakest songwriting ever it doesn’t make for much of a fulfilling experience by the time these 42 minutes are done. I have no desire to listen to any of Late Developers again, and it’s incredibly depressing to get that feeling from one of the most vital pop groups of the 90s and early 2000s.

#belle and sebastian #late developers #matador #folk #indie pop #indie rock #pop #rock #singer/songwriter #twee pop #2023 #2/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Tennis - Pollen

(Indie Pop, Soft Rock, Yacht Rock)

The married duo’s latest album melds their romantic sophisti-pop with new deviations into shimmering yacht rock and shimmering disco, Pollen as much about escapism as it is about the consequences of it. They’re less preoccupied with marital love than ever, but the pure romance and darker sensibilities of Pollen make for their most engaging album to date.

☆☆☆☆

Tennis’ music is so deeply intertwined with Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore’s marriage that rarely is there a moment where their full commitment to one another isn’t at least somewhat present within their music. Over the more than ten years they’ve been creating together, the duo’s music has sat squarely in the world of light indie pop with retro stylings fit for the timeless romance their songs focus on - the brill building worship of their 2011 debut, the psych-infused ‘70s pop of Yours Conditionally, the clash between domestic bliss and external events tearing at it that made 2020’s Swimmer such a delightful listen - and if their music hasn’t always been the flashiest within modern indie, it’s certainly been some of the most pleasant and rewarding. With their latest album, Pollen, they’ve shifted to a slightly different frame of mind while keeping the core of their music intact, turning themselves towards electrifying escapist fantasies. They’re less preoccupied with marital love than usual, but the pure romance and darker sensibilities of Pollen make for their most engaging album to date, touching upon the ways love can be reshaped and given brilliant new hues as Riley & Moore’s romantic sophisti-pop finds common ground with yacht rock, disco, and folk pop, fully immersing themselves in new musical stylings while comfortable in their confectionary indie pop sound the whole way through. In turn, Pollen ends up their most exciting and playful project to date, even when their modest sound and polite compositions keep the music from completely latching onto the duo’s new thematic ideas. Like usual, Tennis’ padded sound is perfectly fit for nostalgia-laden pop songs that don’t feel like they’re relying on the sounds of the past to pull you into the music. Their production is glossy as ever, and with mastering done by industry veteran Joe Laporta. Pollen keeps a hazy ring around its ten songs and a rich, well-balanced blend of sounds the whole way through. These songs are simple in their structure and instrumentation, but Tennis, like always, do a wonderful job making plush indie pop a joy to listen to. While Forbidden Doors' loosened bassline and soft piano leads make for a laidback album opener, the short guitar solos and Moore’s fluttering vocal performances are the push the song needs to go from a fun listen to a lovely one, sticking in your mind for weeks as Moore’s gentle melodicism and the sturdy production keeps you coming back. These simple pleasures are what Pollen thrives on: One Night With the Valet is a lovely ode to the first time Moore and Riley met atop gangly piano chords and a plucky synth bass; Glorietta melds musings on American patriotism (“Their patriotic displays are so loud / I can't see the sunset through the sound”) with the vastness of the States (“Paving all over the shoreline / Can't believe what it looks like / We're doing whatever feels good”) atop punchy, caramelized soft rock; Never Been Wrong gives folk balladry the Tennis treatment with subdued acoustic guitar and rushing synths to bring an intimate mood compounded by the playful waltz of its 6/8 time signature. None of the foundational parts of Pollen’s songs can’t be found in hundreds of other pop songs, but it’s the mood Tennis injects into them - the dreamy romance and vintage pop sounds - that makes the album so wonderful from start to finish. They play it safe, but that doesn’t mean they don’t play it smoothly and beautifully. As Tennis move their music towards a slightly less grounded world, one removed from the mortality and anxiety that brought Swimmer to its interesting middle ground between rich sophisti-pop and moody dream pop, they give greater attention as to when to let the music glide through the air and when to settle it into a specific environment. Paper, with its nature-focused lyrics and breezy woodwind embellishments, picks up the energy in the largely understated second half of the album while still honing in on how romance permeates everything around you when you’ve held onto it as long as Riley & Moore have (“All I hope for takes me deeper / With never any plan, only echoes”), and Let’s Make a Mistake Tonight is one of the duo’s most exhilarating tracks to date as Moore’s starry-eyed songwriting (“Let's cruise in the vesper night / Concrete in the headlights / Wheels set in their arc like gods”) reacts with how deep her love of Riley is after their many years together (“I can't help it, I can't walk away / Take my pain with pleasure any day / We live on the ashes”), Tennis utilizing their simple song structures to make thoughtful statements about how love transforms the world around us and how retreating from the world around you can heighten that romance even more. Seeking anything further than that out of Pollen and you won’t end up with much, but immersing you in simple and honest songs about romance and how it reacts to both the dark and the light is what Tennis have always been best at, and their ambitions haven’t changed a bit with Pollen. It’s undoubtedly not the most thrilling listen this year, but Pollen again captures the magic Tennis so effortlessly create in a compact collection of lush indie pop songs where half the fun is in just losing yourself in the duo’s sunny, sparkly music and its ability to articulate love in so many ways, Pollen willing to bend its light to make statements on devotion they never have before, Tennis in proximity to bliss but testing out new angles and speeds at which it comes towards them. Where plainness can bring beigeness and disinterest to other bands, Tennis use it to emphasize how Riley and Moore’s familiarity with everything about one another and the many years they’ve spent together, Pollen’s soft glow and crisp instrumentation instilling both the familiarity of classic pop formulas and the beauty the two of them see the world through. It’s easygoing, loveable indie pop, and Tennis do it better than anyone else out there, Pollen another heartfelt success in their discography.

#tennis #pollen #self-released #indie pop #indie rock #pop #psychedelic pop #rock #soft rock #sophisti-pop #yacht rock #2023 #8/10 #album review #album reviews #music reviews #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Sam Smith - Gloria

(Pop Soul, Contemporary R&B, Electropop)

Positioning itself as a daring, confident collection of pop songs but possessing none of the charm, lyrical depth, or musical enthusiasm to make that happen, Gloria is Sam Smith cosplaying as pop’s future while desperately appealing to current trends and anodyne pop formulas.

½

I’m not surprised I dislike virtually everything about Gloria, but the most shocking part is just how lifeless Sam Smith is throughout it all. In recent years, their unapologetic embrace of their non-binary identity and inclusion of more direct queer songwriting as opposed to the flat, androgynous love interests of their earliest hits (I’m Not the Only One, Too Good at Goodbyes) has made them one of the biggest names in LGBT representation in the mainstream, but the strength of Smith’s public persona hasn’t nearly kept up with their music, Smith too invested in pop ballad pastiche and appealing to the taste of Billboard charts rather than trying to do anything exciting with their music in step with how they act in the public sphere. And it’s fine if they were interested in simply being a by-the-books pop singer, but Smith has so desperately wanted to be the next Big Pop Statement, marketing themselves as daring new releases even when their songwriting and production remain strikingly indistinct and bland. With Gloria, that’s even more of the case: For all the Rupaul and Paris is Burning samples they include in their songs, Sam Smith is too afraid to actually try something new, sticking to gooey R&B ballads or trying to tap into current trends of afrobeat and hyperpop without any understanding of what’s brought those genres into the zeitgeist. Gloria wants to be everything - it wants to be a liberating statement of queer visibility, it wants to be an emotionally intimate R&B album, it wants to tap into current trends and prove Smith can do more than the standard pop song - and ends up doing virtually nothing as a result. There’s nothing particular Gloria stands for, and when the music is this middle-of-the-road, listening through the entire album becomes a test of patience and your willingness to go more than halfway for Smith’s awkward songwriting to even somewhat succeed. Perhaps the most frustrating thing about Gloria is Smith’s songwriting, with one foot in trite attempts to sing about queerness without saying anything new or personal to Smith (“We love who we love / …Holding hands in the street / No need do be discreet”, they sing in the entirely unrewarding finale Who We Love) and one foot in the same anonymous pop of their past (“Babe, I’m not ready to lose you yet / Yeah, I’ve tried but you know I can’t forget” is all they can muster for the chugging dance pop of Lose You), but what all their writing sits atop is the actual music, similarly lacking in anything unique to say even when it’s trying to make a bid for Smith in new genres. Unholy, a song that has now terrorized just about every retail worker and shopping mall sound system in the world, does an incredible job at running the industrial EDM and hyperpop sound of the late-2010s into the grave with ugly and dry saw synths and percussion that couldn’t even shake the weakest speakers (plus an impressively annoying feature from Kim Petras, whose continued work and defense of Dr. Luke along with a hilariously weak output the past few years have made her one of the least interesting rising stars in recent memory), while their attempt at afrobeat on Gimme through a Koffee feature and lifeless beat make it clear that white British people should stay far away from the genre as possible - I guess it’s appreciable Smith is trying new things, but it feels more like they're trying to appease Capitol records than anything else. The other threads of Gloria aren’t much more exciting - there’s their usual R&B jams like Love Me More and No God that are unremarkable if smoothly produced, folksy singer/songwriter cuts How to Cry and Who We Love that are unoriginal at best with their strummed acoustic guitars and overwrought performances, attempts at club oriented dance jams with Lose You and I’m Not Here to Make Friends that are more likely to soundtrack Target shopping aisles and wedding dancefloors - but by trying to make every moment a big one, Gloria never finds a sense of relief, Smith unable to take in the moment when they’re so focused on keeping an image up rather than doing what they want. I can hear the bustling energy of Lose You or the sensual, wah-guitar sexiness of Six Shots, but Smith never leans fully into it, too reserved and vanilla for the many ambitions Gloria wants to achieve it all at once. But on Smith’s writing, it’s not surprising that an album so boxed in with its sound doesn’t have the most engaging songwriting, but even when singing about their identity and personal struggles with queerness and self-acceptance Gloria comes up short. Ironically, the album’s two interludes - Hurting Interlude and Dorothy’s Interlude - have the most interesting things to say of anything here: the former a sound clip from the 1970 pride march in New York City where a man speaks on the inability to open up about heartbreak to family in fear of hatred and homophobia and the latter stuffing a quote from drag queen Divine, Judy Garland’s  Over the Rainbow and a Sylvia Rivera speech into eight seconds that encapsulates different perspectives into a brisk, eight second lead into I’m Not Here to Make Friends. Smith themselves sticks to what they know: the plain self-care platitudes of Love Me More (“Lately, I’ve been trying not to hate myself / …Maybe I am learning how to love me more”), the lonesome anguish of Six Shots that hints at sex more than saying anything about Smith’s relationship to it (“I know how to mix it up / Let your body go with the slow as we grow with the weekend”). It’s all just so boring, Smith achieving relatability by taking almost all personal weight out of the songwriting, singing of their recent growth without giving any deeper insight into it - it’s cool to hear they’re putting themselves first on Perfect, but a chorus like “I'm not perfect, but I'm worth it / I'm not perfect, but I'm workin' on it” has no staying power, nothing to make sharing your time with Smith’s music worth the effort. Sam Smith so clearly wants the same kind of expansive, boundary pushing power as those they idolizes, but they're not willing to be as visually and musically daring as Lady Gaga was back in the early 2010s nor cut as deep into themselves lyrically as someone like Amy Winehouse or Adele, Gloria distinctly lacking in that sharp edge when Smith is either too afraid or prevented by their label to dig deeper. Perhaps the RuPaul sample on I’m Not Here to Make Friends is the clearest explanation of why Gloria fails to be compelling: for many non-queer people, RuPaul’s Drag Race is often their only exposure to any sort of gay culture, the neon lighting and over the top presentation and reality show format appealing to all even it has very little in common with what you might find at your own local drag show, Drag Race so clean and dramatized that so much of the energy and raw power of live drag performance is cast away for broader audience engagement. Much is the same for Gloria, Smith’s stories too padded and production too hyperactive for you to connect with them in any meaningful way. Sam Smith knows what they want to say with Gloria, but they are shockingly afraid to tell those stories without the safety of faceless radio pop to protect them, just as it did for them way back at the beginning. Nothing has changed.

#sam smith #gloria #capitol #adult contemporary #contemporary r&b #dance pop #electropop #pop #pop soul #r&b #singer/songwriter #2023 #1/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #music reviews #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Siv Jakobsen - Gardening

(Chamber Folk, Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary Folk)

Chronicling stormy memories through wispy chamber folk, Siv Jakoben sets Gardening up for success by letting her stories guide how the music unfolds and letting the music guide her delivery of those stories.

☆☆☆☆

Gardening, for as delicate an album as it is, is never afraid to get into the dirt of Siv Jakobsen’s memory. Her string-kissed folk songs have always been comfortable acting as a bed of clouds for her darker stories to lie in, but what’s changed since her 2017 debut The Nordic Mellow is how much she’s concealed behind the brume, her sophomore album A Temporary Soothing expanding into folk rock with driving percussive sections and pastoral Nordic folk stylings that let her music land heavier on the heart but lose some of the intimacy and nakedness The Nordic Mellow took advantage of in its best moments (Blanket, We Are Not in Love). In response, Gardening sits somewhere between the two, hooked into lush chamber folk the same as her debut but lightening up on the hefty percussion and plucky acoustic guitars of A Temporary Soothing for a more luminous, gentle listen, Jakobsen outfitting her plaintive folk tunes with pensive string sections and earthy woodwind tones that keep energy flowing throughout the album’s 12 tracks with a newfound radiance. Her lyrics focus on her usual themes of reminiscence and regret, but like many post-pandemic albums, Jakobsen finds herself reckoning with grief more directly, less reliant on poetic imagery and allegory to get her ideas across and willing to confront the pain of the relationship at the core of Gardening. It’s a soft, modest effort from her, but the glow of her music is warmer than ever before. Every moment of Gardening shines with its tranquil chamber touches, the core team of string players Sofie Mortvedt and Sunniva Shaw, Marcus Hamblett on both horn and woodwinds along with some electronics, and Emma Gatrill with harp and clarinet additions - plus the hearty ten-person choir who often back Jakobsen - working to keep Gardening a dynamic listen even if the feel of each song doesn’t differ much from the ones surrounding it. Woodwinds supply textural elements for the far ends of the mix, bass clarinet filling the low end of Tangerine with a warm and woody bassline and the pristine flute Small or Gardening (Reprise)’s bouncy clarinet leads gliding atop the rest of Jakobsen’s guitars and percussion, Gardening’s small ensemble of instrumentalists working to imbue every moment with as much emotion as possible. These songs move in a cyclical fashion, hypnotic fingerpicked guitar a lush backdrop for Jakobsen’s bleary heartache in Most of the Time or Bad by Design’s balancing act between caring for someone and completely losing yourself within them, and though it causes the album to be a bit soupy throughout a full listen - 41 minutes of yearning, subtly performed folk songs tend to be a little bit spongy like that - but the sound of Gardening is absolutely lovely and provides enough oomph to Jakobsen’s stories while ensuring it doesn’t become plain folk fodder nor too stuffy to take focus off the album’s most important qualities. And while Gardening focuses on both emotional ghosts in Jakobsen’s past, the power of her songwriting is in how present she can be while working through those memories, weeding those painful encounters from her with patience and love to replace that pain. Romain’s Place - named after the friend’s apartment she first began to pull the hurt from out her heart - juxtaposes the new safety Jakobsen feels now out of a violent relationship with how the memories from it continue to hold domain over her mind (“I see you from the window now, from Romain's place / I swear that you look just the same, you haven't aged at all / How am I back here again, afraid again?”), Gatrill’s brilliant harp accompaniment like angel wings hovering over Jakobsen before Most of the Time molds her sound into a softer background element to Jakobsen’s dreamy but grounded struggle to both accept the end of an old connection and the desire to forget about it entirely (“I wanna know what it feels like / To be alone without you in my mind”). There’s a more carnal wreckage of the self here that pushes Jakobsen to peel back dejected moments without judgment, singing of both alcohol-influenced disregard (“I got drunk on my birthday / Dancing on tables with my friends”) and of the careless, neglectful partner who she so desperately hoped to rely on (“You were late, sat in the corner saying nothing”) on early highlight Birthday, while the disquieting recount of how discouraging and worthless she felt trying to garner any sort of physical affection on Tangerine (Here I am, naked in the front room / The neighbors are staring / And I'm looking back at them / Darling, please, come in”) is tough to stomach even with how beautiful the bass clarinet and string work on the track is, Jakobsen unafraid to tap into angry and insecure territory if it means the worst parts of her past relationship can be forever preserved in the comforting space of Gardening. For as many tender moments there are throughout the album, Jakobsen includes examples of the madness and magical thinking she convinced herself before accepting that this connection couldn’t survive, no matter how much nurturing and time she gave it. But Gardening doesn’t sit in the wake of grief and solely let Jakobsen speak through her songs - it’s an album of growth. The beauty of Gardening isn’t only in how marvelously Jakobsen cultivates a space where these difficult feelings can rest, but also in how much love and understanding she now gives herself, strong enough to not try and return to the safety of a relationship (“But if I could go there, I’d / Never, never go there,” she closes the chorus of Birthday with) and able to find joy in taking care of herself and the world around her, tending to her modest home garden that reveal themselves in her tactile songwriting and lush arrangements. Gardening is a quiet, gentle listen, but it’s because that’s how healing comes about in the real world - you deal with each feeling as it arises, and continue searching for beauty and love in everything you experience, Siv Jakobsen’s music encapsulating that process brilliantly in her every word.

#siv jakobsen #gardening #self-released #chamber folk #contemporary folk #folk #indie folk #singer/songwriter #2023 #8/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #music reviews #2023 albums #luuurien

[luuurien]

Skyzoo & The Other Guys - The Mind of a Saint

(Boom Bap, East Coast Hip Hop, Jazz Rap)

Creating a concept album to dive into darker stories of the brutal impact of addiction on Black communities and those that contribute to the cycle, The Mind of a Saint pads itself with The Other Guys’ timeless, jazzy production to let Skyzoo’s thoughts on both drug use and drug dealing pour out without ever losing the bigger picture along the way.

☆☆☆☆

Always one of the more thoughtful and heartfelt rappers in the New York scene, Skyzoo’s music never sat itself in opposition to the hardcore, East Coast boom bap around him but rather at an angle from it, working through many of the same stories and ideas with an empathetic lens, the stories of Suicide Doors or Steel’s Apartment documenting Skyzoo’s experiences with gang violence and drug use around him but searching for a bigger meaning to it all and how his music could serve as a gateway to understanding for him. His latest release, The Mind of a Saint, packs these stories into a concept album where the sting of each memory is split between Skyzoo and the titular Franklin Saint, expertly detailed and bittersweet as he dives through memories of criminality and the effects of it on those around him. With production by Washington, D.C. duo The Other Guys, The Mind of a Saint sticks to Skyzoo’s vision while letting Might Joe and Isaiah’s production shine, never a moment without beauty and your heart fully hooked into Skyzoo’s narrative raps. Though it sticks to more traditional boom bap and jazz rap, The Mind of a Saint is so plainly beautiful that these mellow beats carry Skyzoo’s stories beautifully. There are a few moments where The Other Guys’ production is a bit too heavy on the ears - the harmon muted trumpet on opener Eminent Domain has quite a bit of piercing high end that’s consistently given me a bit of an earache and The Balancing Act’s strings do the same with a heavy bassline sucking up most of the remaining space - but on the whole the album blends colorful soul arrangements with the driving energy of East Coast rap, Panthers & Powder’s dusty percussion and lush woodwind samples a heavenly backdrop for Skyzoo to examine his struggle between Black power politics and the illicit drug businesses in many Black communities (Panther in my blood, shameful of my business”), and the many losses both personal (Manboy deserved it, Khadijah deserved it / Tyana shouldn’t have been in that car, that wasn’t worth it, Andre deserved it”) and societal (And then death seems to follow suit / The weight to it will follow through / It make you breathe different, don’t it?”) brought to life marvelously over the thick piano leads and gentle brass of Bodies!, Skyzoo and The Other Guys working closely together to ensure the former’s stories don’t lose their punch and the latter’s production doesn’t take a backseat to those narratives. The balance of goals here is absolutely phenomenal, the two of them able to compromise for the conceptual demands of 100 to One or Purity to work over their six minute runtimes, some of the best tracks in Skyzoo’s two-decade career with warm production and magnificent writing. They knew what they wanted The Mind of a Saint to be, and each song helps them achieve that goal with incredible precision and might. Skyzoo’s storytelling finds itself shifting from the melancholy hopefulness of All the Brilliant Things, still working within that dichotomy between the beauty and struggle of his Brooklyn community but now bolstered by more personal storytelling where the perspectives of both the drug dealers who rely on addiction to survive and the lives of the addicts are given equal space to speak. There are times where one is given more time on a track than the other: Views From the Valley speaking on how drug abuse crawls its way into the lives of privileged and how the character of Frankie Saint continues to let them use (“As true as every 8-ball / Passed around this mansion and every mirror it’s scraped off, and the privilege it pays for / ...You know what I could do with one?, this shit could be God tier / Prove to my people how much God cares, God’s here”) while Purity finds Saint confronting the world he’s hurt and how those growing up in it will see him because of it (“Teaching them black pride and about owning where we live / I overheard the talk and went and told him who I’m is, minus the coke of course”), Skyzoo never vilifying nor exonerating The Mind of a Saint’s characters and making the album one of his most rounded and cohesive statements to date. His emotions can get intense, but it’s letting anger and sorrow boil over where The Mind of a Saint’s strongest revelations arise. A fantastically realized and breezy album, The Mind of a Saint wastes no time yet brings about just as strong an emotional throughline as Skyzoo’s strongest work, loving in moments and devastatingly dark in others and fully aware of the risk setting these feelings in such a volatile environment of personal stories poses, but pushes through that fear to create his most brutal and heartfelt project of the past few years, delving deep into his own history in a way much of his music hasn’t and rewarding him handsomely for it. For as troubling as parts of his past may have been, they’ve only served to make him the thoughtful, impressive individual and skilled artist he is today, The Mind of a Saint another smashing success for Skyzoo and a reminder of how essential a rapper he remains decades since he started sharing his voice to the world.

#skyzoo #the mind of a saint #hipnott #alternative hip hop #boom bap #conscious hip hop #east coast hip hop #hip hop #jazz rap #2023 #8/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #luuurien

[luuurien]

Tokyo Shoegazer - Moonworld Playground

(Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Post-Rock)

Some of the most lush and deafening shoegaze in recent years, Tokyo Shoegazer’s second album melds slow post-rock builds and a noise rock sense of weightiness with soft dream pop guitars and Rie Funakoshi’s sweetly sung vocals. Contrast is Moonworld Playground’s defining feature, but feeling the band’s full energy rush past you is nothing short of exhilarating.

☆☆☆☆½

Moonworld Playground was destroyed and recreated during the intense pandemic lockdowns in Japan, but it’s through the album's revitalization that Tokyo Shoegazer makes such an impact. An exciting name in the Japanese underground since their darling 2011 release Crystallize, the band’s mix of shoegaze fundamentals with the acidic edge of noise rock and post-rock’s gradual builds emphasized not only how varied their sound could be, but just how big they could be, too - few other shoegaze albums throughout the 2010s dared to be so ferocious and barbed in their use of distortion petals and endless reverb. In turn, Moonworld Playground keeps that biting edge at the core of its sound while extending their palette with moments of genuine elegance and softness, both their heaviest and loveliest set of songs yet that establish them as an essential name in this decade’s shoegaze scene. They know how to balance roaring tides with the sunshine that illuminates them, and that attention to detail brings Moonworld Playground’s every moment to success. Mixed by Yoshiaki Kondo of rock experimentalists Ground Zero fame and mastered by Dave Cooley, work whose credits range from Madvillainy’s swirling jazz rap to the hypnotic shoegaze of DIIV, Moonworld Playground hits that sweet spot between overbearing loudness and an intense yet approachable widescreen feel. Felicette and Silence kick things off pretty slow with the former’s six minutes of noisy ambiance and the latter’s minuscule opening half before erupting with ghastly guitars and Rie Funakoshi’s soaring vocals, but from there the album heads straight into fast-paced indie rock rowdiness: The Dreamer prickly guitar leads contrast against a dark bassline and blanketing distortion; Moondive assaults the senses with rumbling guitars and noisy percussion; album highlight Paradise reaches a stunning level of tropical lushness with its warm backing guitars and glowing melody. Loudness is an inherent feature of Moonworld Playground, but Tokyo Shoegazer along with Kondo and Cooley’s excellent handling of that loudness ensures Moonworld Playground is a thickly layered and richly detailed listen. When the baggy-influenced drumming sneaks its way into Constellations or Lucid leans into the ambient stylings of the opener with chiming bells and tender singing from Funakoshi, it’s not only a way for them to bring variation to Moonworld Playground but to give the album a sense of scope most shoegaze albums tend to ignore, Tokyo Shoegazer offering a handful of fantastic sounds rather than only a single one. The pandemic’s effects on the band also reveal themselves in how hearty and energetic an album Moonworld Playground is, Tokyo Shoegazer able to play with one another again and harnessing the power that in itself holds. Paradise and Constellations alone send the band on their liveliest expeditions yet, roaring guitars slammed against Hiroshi Sasbuchi’s drumming with a sense of urgency only ever brought on by the excitement of getting to make music with others again. Tokyo Shoegazer’s music relies on its power to bring the band’s ideas to life, but there’s a rejuvenation to their chemistry as a group you can tangibly hear in The Dreamer’s sunny guitar loops or the slow sunset of Tokyo Neon Lights accentuated with a buzzy bassline from Taizo Nakamura, the band sitting around the same table but putting incredible detail and lavishly treating each of Moonworld Playground’s nine songs - it’s shockingly stately for an album with this much noise holding it all together. There are few moments of softness within Moonworld Playground, but it’s seeing those vulnerable corners of the band fully exposed that allow Tokyo Shoegazer to build their wildest worlds from. All in all, Moonworld Playground is just a really good shoegaze album. The songs are huge, each song unique, and the inventiveness in its use of different indie rock styles along the way make Tokyo Shoegazer’s reintroduction to the world a near spotless one, reviving the energy that made their debut more than a decade ago so compelling while building upon it with new ideas and the spark of energy many artists felt when the opportunity to perform with others again opened itself up. The true power of Moonworld Playground, though, is simply the fact that it hits hard and never ceases to inspire with its creative and exuberant take on the bittersweet shoegaze sound they brought to life more than a decade ago.

This review is part of the ALL I MISSED: 2022, where I review all the albums I didn't get to from last year.

#tokyo shoegazer #moonworld playground #higher hell #dream pop #indie rock #noise rock #post-rock #rock #shoegaze #2022 #9/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #all i missed 2022 #luuurien

[luuurien]

High Pulp - Days in the Desert

(Jazz Fusion, Nu Jazz, Jazz Funk)

High Pulp’s new album explores wider expanses and drier, smoother jazz-funk, drawing on the psychedelia of their previous album while grounding the music in thicker instrumentation and bolder compositions. Rather than sweeping you into its world, Days in the Desert lets you marvel at its vastness from up high.

☆☆☆½

Though born in Seattle, High Pulp’s music feels attuned to the sweltering heat and quiet intensity of Los Angeles (where two of its members now reside), their music seeking to transcend the cold and rainy Pacific Northwest with futuristic nu-jazz and dreamy fusion compositions. The sextet’s Anti- debut, Pursuit of Ends, played off traditional jazz fusion with hints of dub and breakbeat in the margins, an immersive if overstuffed introduction to the band’s atmospheric jazz-funk, High Pulp continuing to draw on those ideas in their latest album Days in the Desert. Inspired by the Mojave desert the band drove across throughout their tours as well as reviving charts that were shelved during the pandemic, Days in the Desert plays out both like a new beginning and a change of pace for the group, building each song piece by piece and file-sharing until the songs found their final form, pulling influence from ‘90s alternative rock and lounge revival groups like Tortoise and Stereolab to give the album a smooth, low-key feel compared to Pursuit of Ends’ grander psychedelia. In turn, the album ends up a more enjoyable listen with its own unique hiccups along the way. It’s got all the same strengths as their previous releases, and Days in the Desert’s smaller scope highlights it all more than ever.

At its core, Days in the Desert doesn’t change the formula all too much: drummer Bobby Granfelt stills finds the most excitement in snappy breakbeats and minimal embellishments; Andrew Morrill and Victor Nguyen’s alto and tenor saxophone work respectively plays off one another during their individual sections while also locking in for gorgeous harmonic parts; the dual keyboard work of Antoine Martel and Rob Homan adds all those warm synth textures and extra rhythmic push; Scott Rixon’s bass playing is as study and in the pocket as ever. What has changed, through, is how these elements work in context, High Pulp unable to record these in person due to pandemic restrictions and making their music more linear and defined as a result, solo sections still important to their sound but nowhere near as prevalent as they were on Pursuit of Ends as they make room for James Brandon Lewis to solo in the second half of Dirtmouth or subtly sneak Jeff Parker’s delicate guitar playing into the corners of centerpiece Unified Dakotas. This lack of live-recorded intensity, that player-to-player communication naturally blooming through playing with one another, can be a detriment to the album in its slower sections - Slaw’s blocky percussion and hushed instrumentation is too restrained to really pull you in and Fast Asleep doesn’t build on its instrumentation and makes for a sluggish point in the second half - but the heavier tracks on offer like Never in My Short Sweet Life and its fantastic Mononeon feature or (If You Don’t Leave) The City Will Kill You chugging groove and soaring tenor leads show how High Pulp’s sweltering nu-jazz can work even when one member isn’t right in the spotlight. Days in the Desert knows its atmosphere, and keeps you coasting up and over its sandy expanse with the band’s unconventional take on jazz and alt-electronica.

One of the year’s most refreshing jazz listens, Days in the Desert offers a wonderful take on jazz fusion with the band loosening the screws to be able to make their music from a distance, shimmering ambient pieces and fluid jazz-funk brought down to eye level and letting you explore it to the fullest extent. Rather than returning to the skies, High Pulp ground themselves in the limitations put on them by the world and letting their music act as a breath of fresh air, able to wander when the band couldn’t and allow them to work together regardless of their physical separation. These songs are weary and restless, but they’re full of magic, too: Days in the Desert may keep the sun on your face, but the feeling of relief when the music blows against your face makes every moment worthwhile.

#high pulp #days in the desert #anti- #electronic #jazz #jazz funk #nu-jazz #2023 #7/10 #album review #album reviews #music review #music reviews #new music #music recs #new albums 2023 #2023 music #luuurien

[luuurien]

Old Saw - Sewn the Name

(Ambient Americana, Drone, Avant-Folk)

Moving from the pastures to the farmhouse, Old Saw’s latest album is a darker, dustier collection of ambient folk music where Americana and Appalachian folk are given jagged edges and cold textures. As the quintet tear apart the earthy loam of their sound, Sewn the Name leaves you stranded in some of their most immersive, evocative pieces to date.

☆☆☆☆☆

If you’ve ever spent an extended amount of time out in the country, you’ll know the distinct difference between how it feels at sunrise and after sunset. Early in the morning, when the sun is drifting just enough above the horizon to reveal the dew left atop the pastures and make the wheat sparkle in the wind, there’s an unspoken sense of safety and comfort in it all; when you can hear and see all the life moving around you, it’s hard to feel anything but warmth. It’s when the darkness consumes those very same fields, when the rustling past the edge of the fence becomes too nondescript to tell whether it’s wind or a wildcat, when every creak of the porch steps seeming to have doubled in volume, that the magic of open land reveals its true duality. For the New England based quintet Old Saw, both of these feelings are essential to their music, their masterful 2021 debut Country Tropics somewhere between the memory, the dream and the reality of American folk music, reeling fiddle drones and soaring pedal steel creating gorgeous backdrops for spindly banjos and dark orchestral bells and blurry organs to duck in and out of, a vast expanse of ambient country built on the idea of calling out to the open country without forcing a particular vision of it. Their latest release does much of the same, but chooses the darkness rather than the sunrise for more intimate country laments with an extra layer of mystique, Sewn the Name’s six pieces leaving more space for silence and colder textures. It’s nowhere near as welcoming as their debut, but Sewn the Name pushes you into these quieter, lonelier environments to make you hunt for the beauty inside all the mess.

With this greater emphasis on decay comes an embrace of new recording techniques, tape machine manipulation done by pedal steel player Henry Birdsey giving these songs weight and an acute awareness of how they move through time. There’s heavy tape hiss and crackling in midsection highlight Ira Dorset Suffering From Moonblindness, the titular fiddle player’s whining drones wrapped around reversed 12-string guitar and bell recordings to keep you from getting a full understanding of the piece’s mechanics, and the absolutely spellbinding Spinner’s Weave lends different fidelity to each instrumental part, layers of fiddle covered in a fuzzy haze while Al Lakey’s intricate 12-string improvisations sit crystal clear on top like flashes of sunlight reflecting atop lake water. If Country Tropics let you drift through its pedal steel and soaring string lines, Sewn the Name forces you to confront its physical limitations as music - not one of these songs gets close to the ten minute mark outside of centerpiece Highgate Ledger, and it’s not just so they can fit more songs into the runtime, the heavy banjos and creaking fiddle lines dominating closing piece Bobcat Sarabande never heading to a big crescendo or crash into silence. Here, the edges are rougher, the textures more unvarnished, Old Saw burrowing into the roots of American folk music and reveling in how rugged yet timeless sound of these instruments puts their gentle ambient music in such a precarious position.

It’s beautiful all the same, which is largely why Sewn the Name still achieves such heights despite being a more reserved experience. While many other ambient albums have succeeded in holding their music in a single space or feeling (Irrlicht, Music for Airports), Sewn the Name traces different paths that all stem from the same country road: Brooksville Trestle Remains is distinctly eerie with its wandering guitar work and long pedal steel whines, while the previous Weathervaning uses rich fiddle layers and trickling banjo improvisation to reach for the homey warmth of old folk songs, tethered to the roots of their sound while seeking to pull unique moods out of every individual song. It can almost feel intimidating the first few listens, like the quintet are trying to pull you out of the Country Tropics’ sun-drenched warmth and trap you in the dusty wine cellar, but after settling into the album there’s a permeable sense of grief and devotion within these pieces not near as present in their debut. Music with this deep a connection to American folk history will always be in some part worshiping Appalachian country music, but Old Saw’s ambient pieces make listening to them feel especially tender, Bob Driftwood’s intricate banjo contributions in Highgate Ledger and Weathervaning easy to imagine being part of a live folk group and Dorset’s magical fiddle work in every piece beautiful enough to be in any country band, but in these grooveless expanses their dedication to the technique and feel of these instruments becomes meditative, becomes careful and focused on evoking the places this folk music comes from rather than just performing songs in a traditional country style. It’s a tricky task to pull off, but Old Saw’s willingness to play with the usual ambient elements - sound manipulation, tape machines, minimalist arrangement styles - places their songs right in the perfect sweet spot between ambient and country, utilizing the former’s generous stretches or space and the latter’s emotional sensitivity for some of the most powerful instrumental music this year. Sewn the Name may lie on the moonlit end of ambient country, but by trading the genre’s established norms for gloomy Americana dirges Old Saw unlock whole new dimensions to their sound. For them, ambient country can be as cold as it is familiar, soaring as it is trapped in the past; through their refraction of American folk music through the lens of modern experimental music, Old Saw’s music feels especially out of time, Sewn the Name leaving all the rough edges so you can fall in love with the memories the band is sharing. It can be a tough album to crack, but once you do there’s few other albums this year with such a robust vision and vivid storytelling. The floors might creak and the fields intimidate past sunset, but Sewn the Name makes exploring the darkness beautiful all the same.

#old saw #sewn the name #lobby art #ambient #ambient americana #country #drone #folk #experimental #post-minimalism #2023 #10/10 #album review #album reviews #new album #new music #music review #music reviews #music recs #luuurien #avant-folk

[luuurien]

Hannah Jadagu - Aperture

(Indie Pop, Dream Pop, Indie Rock)

Hannah Jadagu’s Sub Pop debut places her squarely in the world of confessional indie rock while decorating it with hints of sophisti-pop, R&B, and noise pop that keep the edges blurred and the energy intense. Her intimate, hook-laden lyrics focus on what she chooses to carry into the future with her and the fear of what will happen to the things she lets go of.

☆☆☆☆

Like many of her bedroom pop contemporaries, Hannah Jadagu began making music on her phone, working in Garageband with the help of an iRig, guitar, and microphone,j her debut EP What Is Going On? the kind of homemade indie rock that’s easy to connect with and warm on the ears. What underlined those songs, though, was Jadagu’s smooth and mellow voice and sensitive lyrics, the indie rock she fell in love with in her sister’s car becoming the lifeblood of her own music. With the success of that EP came the opportunity to expand, her signing to iconic indie label Sub Pop giving her the space and connections to make even bolder, heavier music unbound to the limitations of MIDI instruments and an iPhone. Alongside French pop songwriter and producer Max Robert Baby, she began incorporating more analog elements into her music, thick percussion and warped synths replacing dry jangle guitars and drum loops, the twelve songs that became her debut album Aperture indebted to ‘00s indie rock as much as the church music and rap she grew up on. Her writing remains steadfast and emotionally charged between stylistic shifts, the new textures within her songs heightening the effect of her catchy-yet-surreal indie pop.

Balancing simple verse-chorus-verse pop music with the sharp edges and unexpected turns of alternative pop is Jadagu’s main concern with Aperture, and the album achieves those goals without sacrificing the main appeal of her music - the writing. For the most part, her songs remain structurally simple - singles Say It Now  and What You Did are both two verses and a chorus, while Warning Sign omits the chorus entirely for its moody sophisti-pop atmosphere - and it’s in the details where the character lies, the watery synths soundtracking family tension in Admit It or the kids choir-esque vocoder in the outro of Shut Down more important than playing with complex song structures or unconventional songwriting. The mood here is noisy guitars and rock drums,mellow vocals and dreamy effects, early highlight Say It Now’s slunking guitars and drowsy percussion befitting of Jadagu’s emotional denial within it, while the penultimate Letter to Myself surrounds her voice with slowcore guitars and synths that sparkle like fireworks before the drums kick in at the end - it’s all under the purview of indie rock, but Jadagu branches out her sound to keep you invested in how her storytelling works alongside it. Aperture is catchy, classic pop at its core, and Jadagu knows she doesn’t need much more to pull you in.

She doesn’t risk going outside of the alt-pop/indie rock sound here, but it’s not an issue when what’s here is so consistently rewarding. The post-punk revivalism of Lose and What You Did harness their blend of volatile instrumentation and introspective writing for some of the album’s most effective songcraft, working in opposition to the digitized vocals and clean pianos of Scratch the Surface or Warning Sign’s R&B leanings to add some grit without straying from her norm. There’s a precision to what she does even as the music commits itself to uneasy emotions, Six Months speeding and slowing down as it follows her anger towards someone who can’t invest themselves fully her and Dreaming centered on finding out a romantic interest is seeing someone and the immediate crash that comes with it by having the instrumentation suddenly drop out from under you. She’s a masterful songwriter and producer, and the polish Baby helps her put on these songs take them to another level, Aperture choosing when to open itself up to the light at the perfect moment for each song to be a pristine and vivid snapshot of what she’s feeling. Hannah Jadagu has had the foundation of her sound settled for a few years now, but Aperture still functions as an introduction to her by showing off what she’s able to achieve with more support behind her, how she can interweave different sounds around her melodic indie pop without losing the charm of her homespun EP. Her music is made to sink into, for the melodies to become earworms you hum throughout the day and are easy to listen to anytime, Aperture addictive through how easily it makes playing Jadagu’s songs on repeat. She knows what she wants to keep with her, and Aperture takes a perfect picture of all those memories.

#hannah jadagu #aperture #sub pop #bedroom pop #dream pop #indie pop #indie rock #pop #rock #2023 #8/10 #album review #album reviews #new music #music review #2023 albums #luuurien