TOTW: Sharon Van Etten_ Let Go

The stand out track I heard this week is the latest from Sharon Van Etten. Her album “Remind Me Tomorrow” was a nominee for my albums of the year 2019.

Her latest track “Let go” is an evolving rock piece with a great pallet of sounds. It continues the trend of high quality pop music with a slight twinge of regret. Based on this example, it looks like she’s continuing to create great music. I look forward to hearing what she has in store for the future.

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Albums of the Year 2019-Sharon Van Etten_ Remind Me Tomorrow

Sharon Van Etten- Remind Me Tomorrow

“Remind Me Tomorrow” was certainly the first album of this year that really grabbed me and its stuck with me for the rest of the year, making it one of the easiest choices for my top five.

Its hard to keep a record sounding fresh over repeated listening. “Remind Me Tomorrow” manages this with a mix of catchy melodic hooks and a cold refined detachment. It creates an overarching haunting style that gives the entire album a direction that holds throughout a collection of tracks, which vary in instrumentation and tempo.

Synths ooze and pulsate through the majority of the album, driving the tracks direction into more sinister corners. Songs about love twist into obsession and sacrifice. Nostalgia turns into missed opportunities. It removes the sheen from even the more upbeat lyrics.

The slower tracks mixed with this style create a thick fog of emotion that underpins the majority of the album.

However, towards its final track, the synths fall further into the background and guitars come to the forefront, bringing a few more rock elements into the mix. With this come brighter and sometimes harsher textures, which, by the end of the album, are nearly uplifting.

This album is a journey with a strong rich atmosphere that allows a collection of great individual tracks to become a great album. It has been on my list for nearly the entire year and has fended off some strong competition to keep its deserved place in my top five:

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TOTW: Sharon Van Etten_ I Told You Everything

Sharon Van Etten’s album “Remind Me Tomorrow” is quickly becoming a highlight for the year. The tracks manage to be both versatile and have a collective vision and direction that works well as a whole.

The album opens with “I Told You Everything.” This is a slow, minimalist track with lots of low end and plenty of mood. The sparse lyrics depict a meeting between two people and, although the subject matter seems pretty normal, the weight that Sharon Van Etten adds to them indicates they are something far greater; the minutia of life that with hindsight often becomes the most important.

As the track slowly develops, it envelops you in its dark soundscapes. These continue throughout the album. It is a soft introduction to a journey that is well worth taking. “I Told You Everything” is a great start to an album that’s more than worth your time:

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TOTW: Sharon Van Etten_ Jupiter 4

I really like the album “Remind Me Tomorrow” by Sharon Van Etten. It manages to create a dark, sweltering world of sound that blends a more standard rock band set up with powerful synths and experimental sound design.

It was really hard to pick one particular track from an album that has so many stand out pieces. Eventually I decided to go for “Jupiter 4,” which (I’m guessing ) is named after the iconic Roland synthesiser. It’s sounds are all over this album, and are used in this track to create the rasping bass pad effect. This creates a foundation of a dark and brooding sound that is enhanced by the tracks down tempo percussion and Sharon Van Ettens vocal delivery.

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