Explore and enjoy the space? The sixth LP in a decade from Brooklyn singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mackenzie Scott brings potent, uneasy, bold, stripped-back indie rock with her characterristically strong vocal presence. Joined by co-producer Sarah Jaffe on other instruments, there’s a running theme of how to find usual edgy inspiration when comfortably settled down in her marriage to painter Jenna Gribbon, for whom she is a regular muse. But never one to get complacent, there’s a creeping questioning of this home comfort in several songs, a sense that she is, as in the cover art, she is a space that’s unfamiliarly roomy, and the sparseness of the music reflects that. There is a face-off of states of mind, between the powerful revenge fantasy single, Collect (Justice is coming / Know it and relax / Did I hit a nerve?”) and Happy Man’s Shoes, which seeks solace over aggression (“I do not accept your shame”). It’s an odd record, one that feels restless, with rock guitars and momentum, and other times half-cooked, semi-filled sounds, but perhaps that’s the point. Other tracks of interest including Wake To Flowers and I Got The Fear, which captures the mood of the album with lines such as “Well, this is new / My winter blues have turned yellow,” then, “And the dread doesn't pay any rent money / But as long as it doesn't get a hold of my honey / Think I'll be alright.” Out on Merge Records.
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