LOTW 11: Julie Doiron, Camera Obscura, Weyes Blood
I feel like November’s already over. But it’s only just started, and it actually started with a bit of a bang. In search of something new? Look no further.
“Tell You Again,” “Love To Annoy,” “Second Time,” Loneliest In The Morning, Julie Doiron (1997)
Loneliest In The Morning is the first solo release by Julie Doiron under her own name; previously a member of Canadian art psych band Eric’s Trip, Doiron released a solo 7" and full-length under the name Broken Girl in 1996. Out the gate, what strikes one when first listening to Loneliest In The Morning is the instrumentation, or lack thereof. Aside from a singular guitar (at times acoustic, at others electric) and occasional percussion, these songs are Doiron against the world, giving the entire album a confessional tone. “Tell You Again” seems to be the most instrumentally full song, with metronome percussion and a mix of two guitar tones.
Loneliest In The Morning explores Doiron’s internal monologue at this particular point in her life: specifically, after the breakup of her longtime band, as a relatively new wife (married to painter Jon Claytor), and as a new mother to her first child, all at around 25. Oof. These feelings of self doubt, love, hope, insecurity, exhaustion, excitement, and everything else across the emotional spectrum exist up and down the album. The record itself often feels like Doiron set her journal entries to a melody, with conversational and casual delivery that evokes eavesdropping on the listener’s part. We hear brief stories of passive aggression (“Got in bed and closed my eyes real tight / Waited for you to shut out the light / And you didn’t even say goodnight”), unexplainable sadness (“I must have changed somehow / I feel lost, but I’ve won / I have my mate and my son”), and overbearing love (“I’ll tell you as you fall asleep / I’ll only dream of you”). Loneliest In The Morning reveals a woman in crisis, a woman holding it together, and a woman getting by all wrapped into one. Doiron pulls back the curtain on her ruminations about the current state of her life, and delivers vulnerability on a silver platter.
Listen if you like: acoustic Liz Phair, a ‘less is more’ ethos, writing in a diary, Cat Power, contradicting emotions
“A Sisters Social Agony,” “Books Written For Girls,” Underachievers Please Try Harder, Camera Obscura (2003)
Twee before twee itself even knew what it was. Before we even talk about the music, just look at the cover photo. Really take it in.
Beanies/berets, club master frame glasses, a tattered but sunglasses-rocking teddy bear, the camera. Please. And you know this was taken in the fall. The twee levels are off the charts!
Underachievers Please Try Harder is the second LP from Scottish indie pop band Camera Obscura. Quintessentially twee (before it got Tumblr-fied), the record explores the boundaries of what twee itself can be with a back-and-forth between styles across the record’s 11 tracks: country twang (“Before You Cry”) doo-wap (“A Sisters Social Agony”), waltz (“Your Picture”), and songs that sound like they could be on the newest Alvvays record (“Number One Son”). The entire album is placed beautifully underneath a veil of acoustic instrumentation and light, tender vocals from Traceyanne Campbell, making it equal parts full and bare with its fair share of poetic lyrical storytelling (see “People get shattered in many ways / They can disappoint you if you see through / their perfect smile” in “Books Written For Girls”). Overall, Underachievers Please Try Harder is an inoffensive pop record with a perfect middle ground between ‘60s pop and the ever-evolving early ‘00s indie landscape.
Listen if you like: tasteful Belle & Sebastian ripoffs, ‘short and sweet,’ Zooey Deschanel, film photography, cosplaying as French
“Be Free,” “Do You Need My Love,” Front Row Seat to Earth, Weyes Blood (2016)
Front Row Seat to Earth is Natalie Mering’s third record under Weyes Blood, a record that retrospectively feels like a natural prelude to the now indie pop canon Titanic Rising and And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow. Throughout the album, Mering leans into her haunting and distinct vocals, accompanied at times by a full symphony orchestra and other times just an acoustic guitar. With the nine tracks all erring on the longer side (except the instrumental closer “Front Row Seat”), Mering takes extra space and care to expand upon her ideas, with many songs having multiple sonic phases (the straight acapella opening of “Away Above” before it enters a twangy and relaxed desert rock tune). Front Row Seat to Earth is a perfect mix of folk and future, of natural and synthetic; see the stripped-down “Be Free” vs. the experimental vocal production and synth choices on “Generation Why” for one example of this. Mering takes care to harken from past musical generations, while adding her veil of modernity to each song.
Written in a time of considerable isolation, Front Row Seat to Earth explores themes of loneliness Mering experienced during her time in New York City, a time during which she says she had “no friends, no money, and no record deal,” living in a basement apartment in Far Rockaway. The tint of melancholy in the record’s inception makes Mering’s independent production choices that much more telling, especially on her vocals (aside from playing mostly every instrument herself). Take “Can’t Go Home,” a track in which Mering layers and samples her voice across tracks to get a man-made, all-consuming chorus consisting of only one person. This is the only backing across the track’s almost five-minute runtime, but the song feels as full and deep as the rest of its album-mates. Lyrically, independence and loneliness are there, shown through stories of escaping (“Some things you’ve just gotta run away from”), disappointment (“It constantly seems / Like there’s no light at the end of my tunnel”), and abandonment and rejection (“Tired of feeling so had / The world that I knew just fell through”). The more I listen to this album, the more I recognize how overshadowed it’s become by Mering’s later releases. As much as Titanic Rising has become renowned as Mering’s magnum opus, Front Row Seat to Earth offers a respectable counterargument for the contrarian in all of us.
Listen if you like: the word ‘ethereal,’ hope and dread coexisting in your brain, nomadic living, deserts, harp, doing the group project by yourself so it gets done exactly how you want it
November has started out stronger than strong, leaving me hopeful for the listening to come. As always, take a gander at the playlist for more favorites not mentioned here.
