2019 IN REVIEW
I've always felt that music is more than just something to listen to: it has been a friend, a healer, a world to hide away in when things get to be too much in the real world. It has comforted me in times of loss and loneliness, helped to sooth my hurts and stresses. And in the last few weeks, since the death of my Dad, it has been even more so. I didn't have much time or spare cash to buy records for most of last year, so my discovery of and listening to new music came mainly through radio, tv and YouTube. It wasn't until Christmas that i had any new albums to play. Two things struck me about the way my tastes evolved last year: one being that i started enjoying more folk-based music, but not the traditional kind; and the second being that the majority of the artists were female. Now, i'm not really a very "blokey" kind of guy. I have no interest in typical male pastimes like sport, cars, or diy, and i've never been "one of the lads". But my music collection has been predominately male, if eclectically so. There are some female artists whose music i love: Kate Rusby, PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Courtney Barnett, Kate Tempest, Kirsty MacColl, and several female or female-fronted bands like Savages, Elastica, and Catatonia. But these have all become favourites in dribs and drabs over the years. Last year i found that most of what was catching my ear was by women, and three in particular: Sharon Van Etten, Weyes Blood, and Aldous Harding. They have all been around for a few years, but until recently they had slipped past my radar.
Sharon Van Etten has been playing her brand of bruised, confessional indie folk for over a decade, releasing four albums of stark and often minimal songs about troubled relationships, regret, and loss. She'd begun to fill out her sound more recently though, and her latest album Remind Me Tomorrow - her fifth - plunged headfirst into icy, retro electronica. I first came across her back in January whilst looking for new music to download on my iPod - an ever evolving "best of 2019", if you will. The track i first heard was the surging synth anthem Comeback Kid, one of those songs that, in a fair and just world, would have been a hit. There are sparse, soul baring songs like "I Told You Everything" , the ghostly electronica of Jupiter 4, the distorted clatter of Hands, the dark regretful nostalgia of Seventeen. It's an album torn between looking back and embracing the present, between wallowing in past mistakes and moving on, all couched in cold synths, drum machines, and all manner of effects.
Aldous Harding is a folk singer from New Zealand who resides in her own odd little world. It was on 6music that i first heard her single The Barrel, a deceptively simple but catchy little tune that ambles along without making too much fuss. Hardings' unusual delivery and diction, combined with her knack for an odd turn of phrase - "show the ferret to the egg" - stood out amongst the many self-consciously quirky "i'm a bit strange, me" types that populate music these days. Her third album, Designer, was highly rated last year, and over several months i was drawn into its soft, fuzzy but baffling world. The music draws you in, all muted pianos, gentle finger-picked guitar, brushed drums and discreet woodwind. The lyrics, on the other hand, are completely opaque, ranging from unsettling to downright bizarre, seemingly full of metaphors that defy any attempt to be deciphered. Harding has refused to explain any meanings behind her songs in her equally vague interviews - an in session appearance on Mary Anne Hobbs show was peppered with silence and pauses - so it's best to let the music draw you in without letting it speak to you in a personal way.
The album that has captured me the most though is Titanic Rising by Natalie Mering aka Weyes Blood. I first heard the majestic widescreen soft rock of Andromeda on a magazine covermount cd, and it piqued my interest. Mering has been around for over a decade now, playing a beguiling sound that takes in 70's soft rock, psychedelic folk,
baroque pop, and experimental sounds. Titanic Rising combines all this with Merings' Karen Carpenter-esque voice, full of longing, sadness and nostalgia, as she muses on love, loss, uncertainty and growing older. Opening track A Lot's Gonna Change imagines speaking to her younger self - "if your friends and family don't stick around, it's high tide, you'll learn to get by" - whilst wishing for a return to childhood when times were simpler, backed by warm but sad piano and strings. The aforementioned Andromeda strolls along with slide guitars, burbling synths and a gentle psychedelic folk feel, "looking up to the sky for something i may never find" (a theme throughout the album). Everyday has a jauntier piano-led melody , reminiscent of Carole King, detailing the difficulties of internet dating. Something To Believe In is a heartbreaking ballad, Mering singing "i gotta case of the empties", searching for "something bigger and louder than the voices in me". Movies opens with arpegiatted synths, before building into a dramatic soundtrack to tales of being disappointed by the "movies when i was a kid", the feeling of being let down by the lack of resemblance to real life. Mirror Forever is a slow motion dissection of how, although our lives are increasingly acted out on social media, the reality is something only we know - "No ones ever gonna give you a trophy for all the pain and things you've been through, no one knows but you" - against a moody drone-like backing. Wild Time ponders the climate crisis, "living in the rising tide" and wondering how we got here, "so far from the truth". Picture Me Better is an open letter to a friend who committed suicide, wishing to know that they are in a better place. Closing the album and bringing it full circle is Nearer To Thee, an instrumental string version of the melody from the opening track, and also a reference to the final song allegedly played by the band on the RMS Titanic as it sank. A record of despair and hope that tugs on the heartstrings and gets deep into your soul. Several of the songs on the album bought me to tears, helping to release some of my own pain on the loss of my Dad. Music helps to heal the hurt.
I've also enjoyed the dark post-punk inspired likes of Fontaines D.C. and The Murder Capital this past year, and i'm still absorbing their debut albums. There has also been retro synthpop from (where else?) Sheffield, by International Teachers Of Pop, funky pop from Lizzo, and quirky folk by Richard Dawson, whose 2020 album is quite a head spinner. I also discovered the retro dance-pop of Georgia, more of whom throughout the new year. Great music is out there, music to touch you, heal you, inspire you. Go out and find it.
Sharon Van Etten has been playing her brand of bruised, confessional indie folk for over a decade, releasing four albums of stark and often minimal songs about troubled relationships, regret, and loss. She'd begun to fill out her sound more recently though, and her latest album Remind Me Tomorrow - her fifth - plunged headfirst into icy, retro electronica. I first came across her back in January whilst looking for new music to download on my iPod - an ever evolving "best of 2019", if you will. The track i first heard was the surging synth anthem Comeback Kid, one of those songs that, in a fair and just world, would have been a hit. There are sparse, soul baring songs like "I Told You Everything" , the ghostly electronica of Jupiter 4, the distorted clatter of Hands, the dark regretful nostalgia of Seventeen. It's an album torn between looking back and embracing the present, between wallowing in past mistakes and moving on, all couched in cold synths, drum machines, and all manner of effects.
Aldous Harding is a folk singer from New Zealand who resides in her own odd little world. It was on 6music that i first heard her single The Barrel, a deceptively simple but catchy little tune that ambles along without making too much fuss. Hardings' unusual delivery and diction, combined with her knack for an odd turn of phrase - "show the ferret to the egg" - stood out amongst the many self-consciously quirky "i'm a bit strange, me" types that populate music these days. Her third album, Designer, was highly rated last year, and over several months i was drawn into its soft, fuzzy but baffling world. The music draws you in, all muted pianos, gentle finger-picked guitar, brushed drums and discreet woodwind. The lyrics, on the other hand, are completely opaque, ranging from unsettling to downright bizarre, seemingly full of metaphors that defy any attempt to be deciphered. Harding has refused to explain any meanings behind her songs in her equally vague interviews - an in session appearance on Mary Anne Hobbs show was peppered with silence and pauses - so it's best to let the music draw you in without letting it speak to you in a personal way.
The album that has captured me the most though is Titanic Rising by Natalie Mering aka Weyes Blood. I first heard the majestic widescreen soft rock of Andromeda on a magazine covermount cd, and it piqued my interest. Mering has been around for over a decade now, playing a beguiling sound that takes in 70's soft rock, psychedelic folk,
baroque pop, and experimental sounds. Titanic Rising combines all this with Merings' Karen Carpenter-esque voice, full of longing, sadness and nostalgia, as she muses on love, loss, uncertainty and growing older. Opening track A Lot's Gonna Change imagines speaking to her younger self - "if your friends and family don't stick around, it's high tide, you'll learn to get by" - whilst wishing for a return to childhood when times were simpler, backed by warm but sad piano and strings. The aforementioned Andromeda strolls along with slide guitars, burbling synths and a gentle psychedelic folk feel, "looking up to the sky for something i may never find" (a theme throughout the album). Everyday has a jauntier piano-led melody , reminiscent of Carole King, detailing the difficulties of internet dating. Something To Believe In is a heartbreaking ballad, Mering singing "i gotta case of the empties", searching for "something bigger and louder than the voices in me". Movies opens with arpegiatted synths, before building into a dramatic soundtrack to tales of being disappointed by the "movies when i was a kid", the feeling of being let down by the lack of resemblance to real life. Mirror Forever is a slow motion dissection of how, although our lives are increasingly acted out on social media, the reality is something only we know - "No ones ever gonna give you a trophy for all the pain and things you've been through, no one knows but you" - against a moody drone-like backing. Wild Time ponders the climate crisis, "living in the rising tide" and wondering how we got here, "so far from the truth". Picture Me Better is an open letter to a friend who committed suicide, wishing to know that they are in a better place. Closing the album and bringing it full circle is Nearer To Thee, an instrumental string version of the melody from the opening track, and also a reference to the final song allegedly played by the band on the RMS Titanic as it sank. A record of despair and hope that tugs on the heartstrings and gets deep into your soul. Several of the songs on the album bought me to tears, helping to release some of my own pain on the loss of my Dad. Music helps to heal the hurt.
I've also enjoyed the dark post-punk inspired likes of Fontaines D.C. and The Murder Capital this past year, and i'm still absorbing their debut albums. There has also been retro synthpop from (where else?) Sheffield, by International Teachers Of Pop, funky pop from Lizzo, and quirky folk by Richard Dawson, whose 2020 album is quite a head spinner. I also discovered the retro dance-pop of Georgia, more of whom throughout the new year. Great music is out there, music to touch you, heal you, inspire you. Go out and find it.
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