Julia Holter is rightfully one of the most acclaimed active musicians, while Jenny Hval remains painfully underrated (she still doesn't have a bolded release on RYM or an album in the top 2500 on BEA). For me, this is an excruciating choice between two stellar tracks (though SoK is far from shabby). Will have to marinate on this for a minute.
I love Hval's free-associative approach to pop on 'Spells', with its swirling, subtly dissonant saxophones floating in and out of its disco-tinged, anthemic '80s pop-rock like licks of smoke, while her glorious voice rises into that beautiful apocalypse of a chorus. Every (solo) release of hers features one pop banger, a song that pushes her otherwise experimental, ominous, sex-positive, quasi-ambient spoken word into Fleetwood Mac- and Sade- and Kate Bush-shaped boxes, and this is her best yet, a cathartic release that feels like the glorious final stage of a trilogy that began with 'The Battle Is Over' and continued into 'Conceptual Romance'. She makes music that is at once dizzyingly dense and yet refreshingly airy, music that is both exhaustingly heavy and yet blessed with an always natural, always playful lightness of touch. I know it's an easy and lazy comparison, but on 'Spells' she recalls the best moments of fellow Scandinavians Robyn and Björk, crafting a slice of pop music that is unafraid of tackling the micro and the macro, hyper-personal music that is full of huge, universal ideas, and that manages to be catchy and immediate without any hint of compromise. She is one of the most beguiling artists working today, and 'Spells' is her finest achievement to date, the most natural synthesis of her pure pop and more avant-garde leanings yet. I'm generally of the opinion that she can do no wrong, but even I didn't know she could be so right. So yeah, vote to 'Spells', a raging river of a song, a rhino-shaped cloud of a song, and Elven banquet of a song, an ascending unicorn of a song, an exploding disco ball of a song. We will not be awake for long.
And thanks to anothergreenworld2 for running a successful tournament that rightly saw my superior taste in music validated and even championed by lesser mortals, regardless of the outcome. Still, 'Roaches' should've won. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
And thanks to anothergreenworld2 for running a successful tournament that rightly saw my superior taste in music validated and even championed by lesser mortals, regardless of the outcome. Still, 'Roaches' should've won.
Probably should've clarified that I wrote that comment with tongue firmly in cheek, and that it's actually been very pleasantly surprising to see songs that I love get so far in a tournament stacked with great choices. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
