Torres, What an enormous room, Merge Records, January 26, 2024
In Mackenzie Scott’s sixth album, we find the artist embracing joy and contentment with caution. Sparkly, yet austere ‘Happy man’s shoes’ voices the hesitancy of finally being at a good place in life. Perhaps things are just too good to be true? Will all the great stuff be dashed out at any moment? ‘Life as we don’t know it’ is driving in its sense of urgency featuring propulsive, inventive melodies as Scott recounts the time she and her stepson almost drowned.
“My winter blues have turned yellow”, Scott declares in the sparse, yet resonant, ‘I got the fear’ (featured in in our March playlist). In Scott’s latest album, we find changing seasons, life transitions, and more spaciousness than previous albums to date. Things are more restrained, and hesitant. Standout track ‘Collect’ features TORRES hard-hitting, visceral trademark. Scenes of near drownings, boats capsizing found in the likes of ‘Artificial limits’ and the aforementioned ‘Life as we don’t know it’ are features of an album touching on unpredictability, artfully conveying feelings of precariousness. In ‘Jerk into joy’, Scott remarks “what an enormous room/look at all the dancing I could do”, finally getting out of her own way and embracing happiness even when plans go south. TORRES’ latest release is a well-earned breath of fresh air.
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Chelsea Wolfe, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, Loma Vista Recordings, February 9, 2024
One of my favorite witch music makers is back with her seventh album, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, and her first with Loma Vista Recordings. With the help of producer Dave Sitek (founding member of TV On The Radio) Wolfe’s latest offering is an exploration of the liminal (literally the name of her song featured on this month’s mix). ‘The Liminal’ is an evocative excavation of the space in between here and there featuring delicate, yet menacing keys drifting over an instrumental undercurrent that flows below like an oil black river. “Nothing dies but nothing thrives in this world,” Wolfe declares.
The deep thudding bass in the likes of ‘Whispers In The Echo Chamber’, pushes out the urgency of Wolfe’s lyrical delivery. “This world was not designed for us,” she whispers. Her latest album covers topics such as dissonance, and feeling hunted. Wolfe bursts free from all restraints, cutting ties if need be.‘Everything Turns Blue’ has menacing build-up, giving forth to an exploration of obsession, not to mention having someone live rent free in your head while wanting desperately to get rid of them. The throbbing undercurrent drifting through the track paired with Wolfe’s spectral vocals feels like being trapped under ice, ‘Tunnel Lights’ incorporates a nearly trip hop sensibility bringing to mind Portishead combined with the album’s characteristic wall of sound industrial bent. Slow burning, subtle, stripped back ‘Salt’ allows space for the atmosphere to expand like a fog slowly drifting over moors. Album closer, the subtle, restrained ‘Dusk’ is an ode perseverance.
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El Perro Del Mar, Big Anonymous, City Slang, February 16, 2024
On her seventh album as solo project El Perro Del Mar, Swedish artist Sarah Assbring explores the rocky crags of grief and loss. Instrumental intro ‘Underworld’ sets the tone featuring austere strings before segwaying into the trepidatious, cinematic ‘Suburban Dreams.’ “Thought I was going places/Thought I was going far,” Assbring repeats. Both lyrically and sonically she brings to mind Julee Cruise’s work for Twin Peaks. In ‘Cold Dark Pond’, she ruminates on recognizing familiar pain and the guilt of possibly passing on something malignant on to someone else.
‘Between You and Me Nothing’, features the artist questioning herself while being haunted by – not a ghost – but the mind, as it slowly whittles away at sanity and peace of mind. ‘Please Stay’ sounds like a record playing on a Victrola that’s been wound too fast, with ghostly vocals calling out as if through a ghost box. Its propulsive melody backed by what sounds like a carnival organ feels like a slow-turning carousel. In an album dealing with grief front and center, tracks such as ‘One More Time’ begs for the chance to steal back time if only for a brief second. So much of grief focuses on time: dealing with it, the loss of it and not having enough of it. In ‘Wipe Me off This Earth,’ Assbring notices: “life has a deal with time,” as she examines coming to terms with loss, and how loss comes swirling through our lives like a tornado, picking up everything and smashing it all over the place against our wishes. On this month’s selection, album-closer ‘Kiss of Death’ Assbring finds peace as she comes to the realization that loss, sorrow and death are a part of us all. That we can hold on to what we have lost, that even though someone has gone away they remain a part of us. “I’m giving despite the kiss of death,” she says acknowledging that pain exists but we don’t have to shut ourselves off and give in, that we must continue to give and live for those who are still with us, that despite loss – life has to be lived and over time, less and less tears are shed. In this remarkable achievement of an album El Perro Del Mar takes us through a journey through darkness into resolution.
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tracks:
1 ‘The Dream of Delphi’ – Bat For Lashes
2 ‘All I See’ – Clementine Valentine
3 ‘Sightseer’ – Nation of Language
4 ‘Millionaires’ – Jenn Champion
5 ‘Fire In Cairo’ – The Cure
6 ‘Act Of God’ – Gossip
7 ‘It’s A Bitch’ – John Grant
8 ‘I got the fear’ – TORRES
9 ‘Afraid of Heights’ – boygenius
10 ‘New Moon’ – Laetitia Sadier
11 ‘Afternoon X’ – Vanishing Twin
12 ‘Pet Rock’ – L’Rain
13 ‘In the Dark’ – Romeo Void
14 ‘Looking for the Sun’ – Mary Timony
15 ‘Playing Favorites’ – Sheer Mag
16 ‘Low Life’ – Mozart Estate
17 ‘I Became the Unemployment Office’ – Goat
18 ‘Moonbath’ – K.U.K.L.
19 ‘Love Buzz’ – Gaye Su Akyol
20 ‘Prayer at the Gate’ – PJ Harvey
21 ‘El Suspiro Cambia Todo’ – Mint Field
22 ‘Thawing Out’ – Constant Smiles
23 ‘Swan Song’ – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard
24 ‘Broken Man’ – St. Vincent
25 ‘The Whip’ – Mary Ocher, Red Axes
26 ‘Thinking’ – a.s.o.
27 ‘Undrunk’ – Glasser
28 ‘Lucky Me’ – serpentwithfeet
29 ‘Suddeutsches Ton-Bild-Studio’ – Beirut
30 ‘You Lucky One’ – Villagers
31 ‘Young & Free’ – Tele Novella
32 ‘Hourglass’ – Hurray For The Riff Raff
33 ‘TEXAS HOLD ‘EM’ – Beyonce
34 ‘Dysphoria Hoodie’ – Laura Jane Grace
35 ‘Sadness As A Gift’ – Adrianne Lenker
36 ‘It’s Cool’ – Chastity Belt
37 ‘weird’ – Wormboys
38 ‘Heavy’ – SPRINTS
39 ‘The Enemy of Earth is You’ – Voice of Baceprot
40 ‘Kiss of Death’ – El Perro del Mar, Vessel
41 ‘Timed Intervals’ – Lost Girls
42 ‘Margaret Calvert Drives Out’ – Bas Jan
43 ‘Every Color In Blue’ – Brittany Howard
44 ‘At The Canyon’s Edge (Interlude)’ – Nuha Ruby Ra
45 ‘Caesar on a TV Screen’ – The Last Dinner Party
46 ‘Saint’ – Tomato Flower
47 ‘Animal’ – Anjimile
48 ‘The Liminal’ – Chelsea Wolfe
49 ‘ALL THE MONEY’ – Moor Mother, Alya Al Sultani
50 ‘Loud Bark’ – Mannequin Pussy