Joy, vulnerability, wistful longing, cutting melancholy, sisterhood, resilience, and healing from grief all burst forth in this uplifting new LP by the ever inventive, eccentric, eclectic Berlin-based singer-songwriter with a distinctive experimental indie-pop here includes organs, flutes, strings and layered vocals. Who is the missing girl here? It’s about close friend who suddenly cut ties with Sarges, and so this album brought a flurry of writing to deal with the resulting shock and sadness, but there’s also a sense that she’s also seeking to re-find herself. One of the most moving tracks is Rose of Jericho, which gradually builds into a sense of renewal in the form of a plant that regrows after it was thought to be dead. Reflections is another beautiful, but more stripped-back acoustic track, pondering with gorgeous melancholy on “her reflection in my tear”. The very slow, dark Friendship addresses a sense of loss in a more doleful style. But there are musically more uplifting tracks, especially Stand Near Your Fire, or the fabulous opener and title track with a thrumming bass line, B-52’s-style chorus, and amusing nun-themed video (though with a short, shock ending “I still feel every sharp little kick of when she took her eyes off me”). Meanwhile Motherless Universe hits a offbeat, alluringly sad funk groove (“She’s not my mother but I still love her’) and Blue Lagoon a driving krautrock momentum (“I turn on th radio and listen to all the beats …”). With songs interspersed with and including inspiring spoken quotations from cultural figures such as Anthony Bourdain to David Attenborough, A.C. Marias to Anne Carson, it’s a album about recovery and identity, undulating in mood, culminating in the 6-minute philosophical closer, Diving, which builds towards seeking some sort of peace of mind. Strangely beautiful, darkly uplifting. Out on Moshi Moshi.
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