In 2016 she portrayed an angelic-voiced captive on Netflix’s sci-fi drama “The OA,” and the following year turned up in David Lynch’s rebooted “Twin Peaks,” where she performed at the show’s noirish roadhouse to close the sixth episode. Perhaps as a result, shortly after sitting for a recent lunch at a greenhouse-like restaurant atop her hotel in Koreatown, Van Etten quickly changes the subject to the waiter.īut that now-or-never approach also speaks to Van Etten’s creative life. Referencing a few of her favorites in Margaret Cho, Todd Barry, Nate Bargatze and Amy Sedaris’ twisted Comedy Central series “Strangers With Candy,” she notes she was a regular visitor to the Comedy Cellar, which was around the corner from her apartment in Manhattan. The second is she might be as committed a fan of comedy as music. Given the occasionally folk-leaning sound of her past work, the first may be her deep love for the dark, foreboding sounds of Portishead and minimalist no-wave punks Suicide, both of which were touchstones for a surprising, eclectic album that swaps the familiar organic framework behind her swerving vocal melodies for growling synth textures and hard-hitting percussion. Yet if the fear is timely, the freedom she sings about - and embodies throughout the album - feels eternal.There are a few things fans might not expect to learn about Sharon Van Etten, who this Friday released her fourth full-length, “Remind Me Tomorrow.” It’s gorgeous yet ringed by scary electronics - like a Joni Mitchell song lost in a Suicide synth-punk dirge, or like Malibu itself, a paradise recently ravaged by wildfires. The most striking moment might be “Malibu,” a swaying California car song about “a couple dudes who don’t give a fuck” falling in love as they drive down Interstate 101. She locates the Springsteen-ian nostalgia in the surging “Seventeen” and sums up the exasperated joy of becoming a new parent in the tender trip-hop/soul ballad “You Shadow”: “Use loving words and be gentle and kind,” she advises, like an indie-rock Mr. The song evolves into a lushly spacey Portishead-style track as she sings about holding hands, sharing a shot, and a confidence that transcends bad memories. The album opens with Van Etten alone at the piano for “I Told You Everything”: “Sitting at the bar, I told you everything/You said, ‘Holy shit,’ ” she sings. The music’s immediacy is reflected in a new generosity in her lyrics. “Jupiter 4” is like a torch-ballad version of the interplanetary jazz David Bowie explored on Blackstar. “No One’s Easy to Love” is a hazy intimation of regret with a head-slap groove on the hot single “Comeback Kid,” Van Etten sounds like an imperious Eighties MTV avenger, punching her way through gossamer synths and Phil Collins-huge tom-tom rumble. ![]() This music is just as expansive, but the songs are sharply sculpted. ![]() Van Etten’s previous LPs rode a sepulchral slow-burn. Vincent (producer John Congleton has worked with both), and the New Wave warrior-queen spirit of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O. Her fantastic new album, Remind Me Tomorrow, ups her ambitions even further, pushing toward a grand, smoldering vision of pop that can bring to mind Lana Del Rey and St. But she’s always had bigger things in mind for her music 2014’s Are We There was a haunted cathedral of stark synths, orchestral shadow play and stormy guitar drama. Van Etten started out playing hushed, disgruntled folk rock, so she often gets tagged as an “indie” artist. ![]() Over the past decade, Sharon Van Etten has emerged as one of the most viscerally potent songwriters around, able to create gigantic-feeling songs that can have Taylor Swift levels of steely-eyed romantic recrimination: “The moral of the story is, don’t lie to me again,” she warned with scathing clarity on her early standout “Consolation Prize” it’s the kind of line that’d leave whoever she’s singing to sleeping with one eye open.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |