Ambient, minimalist, experimental synth-chamber pop by the American artist with a collection of resonantly beautiful, vulnerable and mournful ballads fuelled by heartbreak. It contrasts with the vocal distortions and loops of her release, 2020’s Because of A Flower, here her pure voice now fully exposed – intimate, sustaining long, simple notes across ambient drones with chamber strings on melancholy, wistful opener The Age of Innocence ("I wanted to travel / Home into somewhere I wanted to try / And go very far/ A new life that had yet to be/ Want something it never was”) into beds of stark piano accompaniment on Berceuse in A-flat Minor, Op. 45 and gentle chords on Keepsake, recorded as if she’s just sat down on an old dusty piano in an empty bar. X is even sparser, long drone organ sounds on this instrumental. Untitled II, with piano and a heavily brushed percussion, quietly muses on gender identity, a theme much revisited in her work. One Shall Sleep however changes style and mood in an ambience of string sounds from here and on the next track slightly reminiscent of David Lynch film, but actually using Robert Schumann's lied Stille Tränen with a sleepy spoken word of Justinus Kerner's 19th century poem: “From sleep you have risen / And walk through the meadow/ Everywhere lies heaven's wondrous blue.” The syrupy synths of instrumental Wishful (draft) are even more Twin Peaks. Her voice returns with stark beauty on Cover Me, before the closing Atonement: “Running forward and looking ahead / With a long road to go.” Slow, mournful, meditative, reflective, but also effective. Out on Kranky.
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