Heliot Emil presented their 2021 ready-to-wear fall-winter fashion film Unstable Equilibrium.Danish designers Julius Juul and Victor Juul explored form and function through their experimental approach. This collection examined juxtaposing notions of balance and imbalance.
As Julius says, “Is it possible to make something appear unstable while being stable? Is it possible to find a perfect balance in asymmetry? Can we challenge traditional shapes or can we modify items to be worn both in and out of balance?.” Many elements appear throughout the collection, from fabrication, styling, silhouettes, accessories, and detailing. There is a contrast of both symmetrical and asymmetrical silhouettes through the creative pattern making. The materials are a combination of thick heavy fabrics, knits, and lightweight materials. Metallic elements such as zips, buckles and buttons were employed to create a rugged appearance, along with styled statement accessories and chunky shoes.
Lourdes presented their fall-winter collection titled Ascension at Paris Fashion Week. New York-based designer Andreas Aresti explored diversity in his collection, taking aspects of hybridity and cultural references. This collection has a combination of feminine and androgynous looks. Throughout the collection, Aresti utilised creative pattern-making techniques: back cut-outs, pockets along the leg of the jeans, sleeves within sleeves, and trousers with stand out elements.
Mame Kurogouchi presented her 2021 fall-winter collection at Paris Fashion Week. Japanese designer Maiko Kurogouchi went for a simple silhouette with an abundance of surface designs and manipulations for the collection. The dresses and skirts come just above the ankle. The outerwear has a soft structure appearance with oversized sleeves. There is an impeccable amount of detailing used throughout the collection. Moreover, there is a lot of emphasis on the collection’s pleating; most have different accent colours adding more dimension to the garment itself, creating a design within a design. Kurogouchi also played around with the print colours; in fact, they look different each time, but when closely observed, they are the same, just with various colours. The use of base black and white colours with pops of contrasting colours created a vibrant appearance.
Originally from Monument, Colorado, Anika Pyle got her start in music after moving to New York and immersing herself in Brooklyn’s vibrant DIY scene. She quickly found acclaim as the lead singer of the pop-punk outfit Chumped, who disbanded after releasing one full-length album, Teenage Retirement, in 2014. Now based in Philadelphia, PA, the singer-songwriter, poet, and multidisciplinary artist has since helmed a wide range of projects, including katie ellen, a collaboration with Chumped drummer Dan Frelly that culminated in two EPs and one LP, 2017’s riveting Cowgirl Blues.
More recently, Pyle has started releasing music under her own name, and put out her debut solo album, Wild River, last month. Though it marks a clear sonic shift from her past work, the 32-minute record is still anchored in the kind of bracing vulnerability that has made her songwriting so resonant in the past. Reflecting on the sudden death of her father in October 2019, Anika fuses heart-wrenching poetry – some sung, some spoken – with musical textures that are quietly evocative, soft keys and spare acoustic guitar that let the words breathe and occasionally morph into a stirring melody. Like the titular character in ‘City Butterfly’ that knows “how to find a flower where y’all/ Could never think a flower to be,” Pyle locates moments of beauty in strange and unpredictable places, marveling at the richness of life and turning what could have been a bare musical landscape into an immersive and deeply moving listening experience.
We caught up with Anika Pyle for the latest edition of our Artist Spotlight interview series to talk about her personal growth journey, the process of making Wild River, and more.
Something you’ve discussed in recentinterviewshas to do with the expectations people might have going into your new work from having listened to your previous projects. How do you feel about people discovering your past work now for the first time? And what’s your response when someone who’s not familiar with Chumped or katie ellen reaches out about your new material?
I always say, it doesn’t matter how someone comes to the music. If it moves them and they get something out of it, wonderful. I’m proud of the work I and the folks in Chumped and katie ellen did. My only hope is that a listener would grant me the grace of being a person who evolves, not judging my current work to past standards or vice versa.
Whenever anyone connects to my solo work without having come to it via Chumped or katie ellen I am always a bit shocked and humbled! I still carry the assumption that anyone listening now was a Chumped fan first. It’s nice to be able to give myself a little credit, granting myself the same grace I’d hope others would have for me!
A lot of artists’ sense of self-worth often becomes tied up with a band and their success over time. When you think back on the past decade or so and reflect on your own growth as an artist and an individual separate from any connections you’ve made, what are the things you’re most proud of?
Yes. I have certainly allowed my identity to be inexplicably tied to a particular project. That’s dangerous territory, the narrowing of one’s self. Moving past that, I am most proud of self-releasing Wild River, of pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, doing my own press, doing my own pressing, my own artwork, making some of my own music videos. Of course, you’re never really completely alone so I’m grateful to the friends who have helped me along the way. Aside from that, I’m proud of the relationships, friendships, the beautiful moments I have shared with people, especially on tour. This is a much more personal thing and probably a strange answer but about a year ago I started taking anti-anxiety medication. That was a long road with a really caring doctor who encouraged me to mitigate my unnecessary suffering. I am really proud of that decision. Medication isn’t for everyone but I think of all of the pain I could have saved myself and just feel really proud that I finally got over the myriad feelings that prevented me from owning the need for help.
How conscious are you about reflecting that personal journey through your creative process?
I think I’m highly conscious of reflecting the personal journey of growth and metamorphosis through the creative process. I love to follow along with an artist, be a witness to their evolution. It takes a lot of bravery to get better (or worse haha) in front of others. I remember when katie ellen started I was so self-conscious about my guitar playing, trying new things, I was not very good at a lot of stuff but I appreciate when other people embrace their vulnerability and show folks that it’s about process, not perfection. I think everything I make is sort of a conversation, a question, an investigation of a thought or moment. I hope that resonates with folks and allows them to honor their constant personal evolution.
Your new album, Wild River,begins as a meditation on failure before that theme becomes intertwined with experiencingthe loss of a parent. How did accepting failure become an integral part of the story you wanted to tell?
The concept of failure played heavily in thinking about my father’s death. He had a life long struggle with alcoholism, addiction and clinical depression. To many in society and even people close to him, he could have been considered a failure, even in his death. We compare ourselves to our parents, trying to avoid the “worst” parts of them only to discover that we have our own demons, our own personal misgivings. I don’t think my dad felt like a failure or if he did he never let on. When he died, he was a dishwasher at a steakhouse and he used to refer to himself as “the highest paid dishwasher in history.” He lived with a sense of positivity and dignity, especially after having chosen sobriety in the last four years of his life. To me, I was investigating how the shame of “failure” shapes the lives of our families and how we inherit the shame of failure-induced trauma when we are the children of people struggling with addiction or depression but also we have our own failure to grapple with. It made me more compassionate towards my father and also towards myself to work with that.
Towards the end of the album, there’s the line, “Everybody is a failer/ Nobody is a failure.” I love what you’re saying here – why do you think we as a society have a tendency to infer the opposite?
We live in a society in which shame is believed to be a worthwhile and effective tactic to changing unwanted behavior. The research points to the opposite. Shame, which says “we are bad people because we have done bad things,” actually does not lead to long-term, meaningful behavior change. There is a difference, psychologically, between saying, “I have failed. I made a decision that had a negative outcome, an unintended consequence. I can learn from this moment and do better next time because deep down I am good and worthy,” and, “I am a failure. I am a bad person. I can never get anything right. I am not worthy.”
The latter debilitates you. If you believe you are a bad person, a “failure,” a “junkie,” a “cheater,” an “abuser” than what avenue do you have to restore justice to others or reform your character? If society believes this about you, where do you go for help? Failure is a damning word. Failer is a hopeful word. Unlike failure, failer does not define us deep down by our worst mistake. Failer says, I make mistakes and I learn from them and I am worthy of forgiveness and that is what it’s like to be human.
I wanted to talk a bit about the structure of the album, particularly the way you combine musical passages and spoken word. While it’s not an entirely new concept, there seem to be more musicians nowadays utilizing that approach and getting recognized for it, often as a means of working through grief – I’m thinking of albums like Cassandra Jenkins’An Overview on Phenomenal Nature or Mount Eerie’s last few records. Do you think there’s more space in the indie scene and beyond for bringing together poetry and music? And was communicating the intimate realities of that experience part of the reason you chose that approach?
There are a lot of things I wanted to say on Wild River that I couldn’t quite express in song, corners of experience that poetry allowed me to reach more easily. I do think there is a barren vulnerability to spoken word unaccompanied by music. I actually re-recorded all the poetry tracks with a telephone that has a microphone input. The intimacy of it didn’t translate from the studio mic so I re-did it all at home and I think it was much more emotive. It made it feel like I was speaking to someone, my dad, myself, the listener. That intimacy, given the content of the record, was necessary I think.
I hope there is more room for poetry in music! I think so many people are afraid of poetry as a medium. There is this grotesque intellectual masturbation surrounding poetry. Like you have to be “smart” and “deep” to relate and I hate that sort of othering. If you relate to lyrical music, you relate to poetry. Think about Bob Dylan. He’s more of a poet than a musician when it comes down to it. Well, I don’t know someone might crucify me for saying that haha. But what is a song but a poem set to music? I think if we can embrace that idea, than hopefully folks can embrace more poetry and I think music is a perfect place to dip your toe in the water.
I think there is a movement happening right now thought that is connecting young people especially to poetry. I think of Rupi Kaur. I was in a bookstore in San Francisco once and asked if they had her first book. The dude behind the counter said, “Um we don’t have that. It’s not really ‘our thing’” with this sort of poo-poo disdain. I’m like…well you’re quite behind the times then haha. This woman is revolutionizing poetry and so is Amanda Gorman, Nayirah Waheed. I mean, how incredible to see this young Black poet performing at the SUPER BOWL. Poetry is in for a new and beautiful ride, thanks – I think – especially to a long and beautiful history of women poets of color completely running the game.
The voice recording of your grandmother that opens and ends the album really brings new meaning to the project. I know you came across that almost by accident as you were completing the album – could talk me through what was going through your mind when you first found it?
When Matt Schimelfenig (my producer) was mixing the record, I had to make space on my computer for the quite large files to listen back. I’m a bit of a digital hoarder haha so it was a big project. While I was cleaning out my iTunes I discovered a VERY large unmarked file. When I opened it, the first voice I heard was my grandmother’s. She had died three years before that so hearing her was quite the emotional experience as you can imagine. My aunt (my father’s sister) had made some recordings right before my grandma passed away of her talking about her life, the lessons she had learned from her parents and grandparents, throughout her 97 years. She recited a direct message to each of her grandchildren and that is what the first message is on the record. During the mixing process I was struggling to feel like I had tied it all together, all these seemingly disparate experiences. Hearing my grandma’s note to me and also the recording that ends the record, the recitation of her life’s lessons… it was as if it was divinely delivered. I don’t believe in God in the traditional sense but I do believe in the incredible interconnectedness of the universe and making meaning out of the seemingly random, painful yet hilarious experiences of life. This felt as close to “God” as I had come. I like to think that I missed this recording when they were originally sent for a reason and my grandma and my dad perhaps illuminated them at the most meaningful moment. I think I just sobbed and sat there with my mouth open for a minute. It was an incredible and unforgettable experience.
Another one of my favourite lines is from ‘Emerald City’: “You know the realness of it/ But can’t ever grasp the infinite depth.” Would you say that kind of summarizes what you try to evoke with your art in general?
I think one of the most beautiful things about works of art is taking these very real, visceral, even mundane experiences and allowing, through creativity, the participant or listener to access the deeper, infinite meaning in them. Sometimes, when you are in a moment you are feeling it somatically, you can’t quite grasp the meaning of it. That meaning-making is a life-long process. You can think about something like a love relationship or the grief process, your experiences with these things evolve and mean different things at different times.
This line was inspired by nature, which is the beholder of such a lineage of infinite meaning. The metaphor here is about a body of water, in this case, a lake in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. We were on a tour and chose a big lake to go swimming in on the way to a show by seeing it on Google maps. We rounded the corner of this windy road and all of a sudden the most beautiful lake I had ever seen came into view. It was so real, seeing this vast blue surrounded by mountains but I knew there was more to it. There was something meaningful about that moment, more than what was on the surface but I couldn’t quite touch it at the time, emotionally. Think about all of the relationships other people, animals, geological processes, have formed with this one body of water. And we call it a body, think of how infinitely mysterious the body is…
Anyway, that experience was a larger metaphor in the song for how there is infinite meaning in each small moment and we are often so distracted by the life we don’t stop to pay homage to that fact. This lake had a deeper meaning of me than I could have even imagined. One of my favorite books as a little kid was Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. It’s a bit of a coming of age story about a little girl with Native American heritage who is on a quest to visit her mother on a road trip with her two goofy grandparents. A central theme of the story is to not judge others until you’ve walked two moons in their moccasins, that people’s stories are more complex than what is on the surface, their pain often silent and infinite. You learn (spoiler alert) at the end of the story that the little girl’s mother is actually dead. She died in a bus accident “rounding the curve straight into the canyon” on that same road in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. I get chills thinking about it because I didn’t realize this until after Wild River was released and I reread the book just a few weeks ago. How significant and meaningful that book was. I reread it every year for years after I discovered it when I was 8 years old. Then all these years later, to make these connections. That’s what I think must have been percolating in that line for me.
I feel that line also relates to the opening of the final poem, where you ask, “Have I become dull to the wonder of the world?” What I love about it is not just how you go on to list a number of small things you still find joy in, but also how that’s juxtaposed with the refrain from the song’s previous section (“No one knows me like you do”). In the end, how much of that sense of hope and meaning do you feel comes through human intimacy?
The most meaningful and important thing in life is to be loved and known. A safe relationship is the most hopeful and transformative experience in our lifetimes. There was a Harvard study done, a longitudinal study of men throughout their life. In the end, the perception of your own life as good and also your physical health was deeply correlated to having a spouse, a tight-knit family, and/or a supportive close community.
To love is to know. You can’t love someone and honor them without knowing some of the intimate details of them, these silly little things that then become big, meaningful things. Even the idea of love at first sight. What is that feeling but the sensation that you know someone so well when you really have never even met? I think feeling like there are people who know you intimately, allowing people in, reciprocating that, is the most hopeful and meaningful experience. That line speaks to the simple idea that I knew these little things about my dad and while there was so much I don’t know, never will, it’s those little things that keep my alive in my heart. There are people who know me like that, many people, and that makes my life meaningful.
The title of that final poem, ‘Life is Funny Haha’, is also what you’ve named yourPatreon. What is the significance behind that, and what can people expect from following you on the platform?
Life is A Funny Haha has become sort of a life mantra for me. My friend Steven sent me a meme yesterday, it just said,
Life is:
Painful
Hilarious
That pretty much sums it up haha. Life is so perfectly tragic but simultaneously so beautiful and meaningful and joyous. We have to live with, embrace and find a way to survive amidst both. It kind of goes back to what I was saying before about finding my grandma’s recordings. To me, that is a moment where I would say “Life is a Funny Haha!” it hurt to hear my grandma’s voice but it was so special to find that at just the right moment. The mantra is also informed by a quote I repeat often to myself by Alain de Boton: “The emotionally intelligent person knows how to hope and be grateful despite the essentially tragic nature of existence.”
Through my Patreon, I’m trying to cultivate a space in which vulnerability is celebrated and pain is acknowledged but where I can share creative, joyful, funny, community-building tools to move through, embrace and thrive despite the pain. Every month I send out a Muse+Letter that is part personal experience part positive psychology. I share something I’m working through, something vulnerable, and then relate it to a coping skill I’ve gained. It comes with a “Read+Write+Listen+Do” section with a reading recommendation, a writing prompt, a song or podcast or meditation to listen to, and a creative exercise.
I also do a monthly livestream, art + crafts nights, and each tier up from $5 gets a special thing like a zine with writing, poetry and art, an original print, or even a curated library of books I love with reflection guides.
I’m trying to share some of the tools that have helped me and also the art I’m making, all in hopes it makes folks feel more empowered and less alone.
Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket is known for its wry and rather dark sense of humor, most apparent in the film’s dialogue. The film begins when a group of recruits arrives on an island ready to become Marines and serve in the Vietnam War. Their ruthless drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey), torments the recruits harshly, trying to wheedle out the weak.
He begins by stripping the young men of their identities and giving them new names. James T. Davis (Matthew Modine), the protagonist, now goes by “Private Joker”, but Hartman seems to respect him because he promotes him to squad leader when he cracks a rather audacious joke. The first act of the film takes place solely on the island. When they become Marines, they are flushed out into the real landscape of war, which they find to be a confusing motley of mayhem.
Still, the film – and its characters – never loses its sense of witty humor. Private Joker is an intriguing hero who doesn’t always fit into the mold of a hero but is admirable nonetheless. The first act remains the film’s most memorable, but the latter portion offers a totally new experience that is in line with the characters’. Here are twelve of the best quotes from Full Metal Jacket.
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: Holy Jesus! What is that? What the f*** is that? What is that, Private Pyle?! Private Pyle: Sir, a jelly doughnut, sir! Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: A jelly doughnut?
Private Joker: Are those live rounds? Private Pyle: Seven-six-two millimeter, full metal jacket.
Private Joker: This is my rifle. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life …
Private Joker: Sir, does this mean Ann Margret isn’t coming?
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: You’re so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece! What’s your name, fat body? Private Pyle: Sir, Leonard Lawrence, Sir! Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: Lawrence? Lawrence what … of Arabia?
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: What is your major malfunction, numbnuts? Didn’t Mommy and Daddy show you enough attention when you were a child?
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: The deadliest weapon in the world is a Marine and his rifle … Your rifle is only a tool. It is a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not clean and strong you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead Marines and then you will be in a world of sh*t because Marines are not allowed to die without permission.
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: What’s your excuse? Private Cowboy: Sir, excuse for what, Sir? Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: I ask the f***ing questions here, Private!
Private Joker: The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: Do you think I’m cute, Private Pyle? Private Pyle: Sir, no, Sir!
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: Then wipe that disgusting grin off your face.
Private Pyle: Sir, yes, Sir!
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: Well, any f***ing time, sweetheart!
Private Pyle: Sir, I’m trying, Sir!
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: Private Pyle, I’m gonna give you three seconds, exactly three f***ing seconds, to wipe that stupid grin off your face, or I will gouge out your eyeballs and skull-f*** you!
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: How tall are you, private?
Private Cowboy: Sir, five-foot-nine, sir.
Gunnery Sgt. Hartman: Five-foot-nine, I didn’t know they stacked sh*t that high!
When you’re the bassist for Real Estate, one of the most amiable indie-rock outfits of recent times, what do you do as a solo artist? You make something just as pleasantly enjoyable, judging by Alex Bleeker’s first solo album in six years. This is to do Heaven on a Faultline a disservice though, as it’s a collection of homespun sounds that signal Bleeker’s intent to remember the music that made him fall in love with the form in the first place. So what we get is jangling indie-rock reminiscent of fellow New Jersey-ites Yo La Tengo crossed with country folk that honours Neil Young.
And homespun wasn’t used as a mere descriptor here: Bleeker initially made the album in his bedroom, actually finishing it in January 2020 before the world was set alight. After watching Real Estate’s fifth album come out last February and being swallowed by the onrushing COVID-19 pandemic, spending the remainder of that year trying to connect with fans in any way they could, his solo effort has finally seen the light of day.
Given that this was essentially a record for Bleeker himself to explore his music roots, it’s testament to the quality of the songs that they connect to another listener at all. It serves as a warm and gentle amble through his music history, full of grooving bass and twanging guitar. Tonally pleasant tracks like the jangly instrumental ‘AB Ripoff’ and the meandering ‘Swang’ abound. The melodies, simple yet memorable, come to Bleeker with an apparent effortlessness, as on the vintage-tinted ‘Mashed Potatoes’ or the swaying ‘La La La’. The only outlier is the dirty and groovy psychedelic track ‘Heavy Tupper’.
Heaven on a Faultline is an album of transitions. Lyrically, Bleeker deals with the anxieties of a changing world: ‘D Plus’ may contain chiming guitars but it was written on the day of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration; the jaunty ‘Felty Feel’ sees him considering climate change and his feeling of powerlessness in the face of it, marking the juxtaposition of bleak words and upbeat rhythms with a certain passivity: “Let’s just not talk about it/ Seriously what’s the use/ Don’t mean to be a downer/ But there’s nothing I can do.”
Bleeker also uses the album as a way of processing his geographical roots. The double hit of ‘Tamalpais’ (itself a peak in California) and ‘Twang’ are his musings on leaving behind the East Coast for California; “I can’t find the rhythm,” he sighs on the latter. He ends the album with ‘Lonesome Call’, a cry from the dust bowl, a sweet acoustic folk number. Bleeker appears to be a man stuck between places and feelings: “You had a 20th century style but it’s the 21st century now,” he says to a character in ‘Mashed Potatoes’, but it could easily be a remark tossed his own way. Yet it shouldn’t be any other way: as music increasingly moves towards post-genre chaos, a gentle reminder of the qualities of the former century’s finest musical styles is welcome. Bleeker may never make a record that is overpowering, but what this little collection of guitar highlights does do is make you want to retreat to your own room and record with the instrument immediately.
Bill Melendez’s 1969 animated film A Boy Named Charlie Brown is among the titles that immediately come to mind when I think of movies that left a significant impact on me.
I discovered the Charles M. Schulz comic strip Peanuts as a teenager, previously knowing it only by reputation: as the antecedent of holiday cartoons like A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966). I’d enjoyed those shows but had only seen them a handful of times, perhaps because I wasn’t old enough to fully appreciate the precocious nature of their characters (I was too young to understand what Lucy van Pelt meant in telling Charlie Brown that Christmas is “run by a big eastern syndicate” or grasp the humor in such a statement being enunciated by children less than ten years of age). In fact, my most personal connection to Peanuts back then was a trip to Schulz’s birthplace—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA—in the winter of 2000. Although I was there to visit relatives, what remains most vivid in my memory is the dozens of Charlie Brown statues peppered throughout the city in Schulz’s honor. (The cartoonist had died earlier that year.)
Nine years pass; I’m now months away from graduating high school. Opening the newspaper one morning, I come upon the following four-panel gag in the funny pages: Lucy and her younger brother Linus stand at a window, watching a torrential downpour; Linus remarks that he’s glad to be indoors; Lucy proclaims “only a real blockhead” would go out on a day like this; cut to Charlie Brown standing on his pitcher’s mound. “Where is everybody?” he asks. [1] Instantly captivated, I began hunting down anything and everything Peanuts-related that my adolescent self could afford; and when I learned about four feature-length movies released between the years 1969-1980, I became determined to see them. [2]
A Boy Named Charlie Brown was the first of the four, made when the animated television specials were still a relatively new phenomenon. According to Charles Solomon’s book The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation: Celebrating Fifty Years of Television Specials, Schulz, director Melendez, and producer Lee Mendelson first discussed the idea of a feature-length movie in 1965 but didn’t get far due to doubt amongst themselves that they could pull off such an undertaking—and because no distributors were interested in the project. [3] By 1967, however, the media climate had changed, and audiences were hungrily devouring Peanuts merchandise in every form. Television ratings for the half-hour specials were excellent; the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown was a recent success on Broadway; publishing house Holt, Rinehart & Winston had sold more than eight million dollars of Peanuts books; and the success of jazz musician/composer Vince Guaraldi’s Peanuts-themed albums further demonstrated the impact Charlie Brown had had on mainstream consumers. [4] With the timing perfect for Schulz’s characters to migrate to the big screen, producer Mendelson landed a contract with CBS’s newly formed motion picture company, Cinema Center Films; and on December 5, 1969, after nearly two years of production, A Boy Named Charlie Brown premiered at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
Despite playing on a single screen for most of December, the first Peanuts movie earned $60,000 on its first Saturday and $290,000 during its second week. [5] Occupying the number one spot in box office charts until the stateside release of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Charlie Brown drew favorable reviews epitomized by the New York Times’s Vincent Canby: “[I]t’s difficult—perhaps impossible—to be anything except benign towards a G-rated, animated movie that manages to include references to St. Stephen, Thomas Eakins, Harpers Ferry, baseball, contemporary morality (as it relates to Charlie Brown’s use of his “bean ball”), conservation and kite flying.” [6]
Four decades after its initial release, the film gave me, a burgeoning Peanuts fan, exactly what I wanted. As indicated in Canby’s description, it’d successfully preserved what made the comic special to begin with; it was also a triumph cinematically, packed with stunning visuals and supplemented by an outstanding musical score. But the film had also given me something I hadn’t quite expected. After watching Charlie Brown’s silver screen debut, I was convinced I’d seen one of the great American movies about a subject rarely portrayed so honestly and inspiringly in a motion picture. A subject perfectly summarized in this statement from Pixar animator Jeff Pidgeon: “A Boy Named Charlie Brown is about how to confront failure, and how you can work really hard […] and still keep going if you lose.” [7]
A recurring theme in the comic strip was Charlie Brown’s ill-fated attempts at proving himself: his inability to win a baseball game, to fly a kite, to kick the football from under Lucy’s hand (before she pulls it away and sends him sailing through the air). Such scenes appeared in the television specials and they appear once again in A Boy Named Charlie Brown but are this time used to accentuate a character-driven narrative. In the picture’s opening sequences, Charlie Brown watches his kite fall repeatedly to the ground, until his anthropomorphic beagle Snoopy manages to keep it airborne while sleeping! Once again, his baseball team is mercilessly defeated in a game. Once again, he unwisely visits Lucy’s “psychiatry booth,” subjected to a slideshow demonstrating his faults, furthermore baited into her football prank again; and there’s a bonus: she had a camera set up, meaning he gets to see his latest failure on instant replay! As we follow these familiar pratfalls, in voiceover Charlie Brown talks about how “nothing ever seems to go right” for him and how he’s become so discouraged he “can hardly stand it.” And then, his quest for accomplishment, propelled by these early scenes, takes him on a new journey, where he’ll either become a hero or make a bigger fool of himself than ever.
The screenplay, written by Schulz, recycles part of a narrative created for a February 1966 series of strips, wherein Charlie Brown entered his school’s spelling bee. Except rather than strike out on the first round (misspelling “maze” as “M – A – Y – S,” as in baseball player Willie Mays), he wins the contest—amusingly by spelling words indicative of his own character (“failure,” “insecure”). And just when he’s finally regained self-esteem, he’s sent to a national competition in New York, with all his friends expecting (rather, demanding) he return the champion. Bill Melendez’s direction, heretofore alternately whimsical and melancholy, takes a turn for the suspenseful as Charlie Brown wades through the competition, still spelling words familiar to his own life such as“incompetent” and, to Lucy’s bewilderment, “fussbudget.” Allowing the scene to go on without music, Melendez heightens tension until Charlie Brown’s one of only two contestants left. And then our protagonist embarrassingly misspells the word “beagle” (“B – E – A – G – E – L”).
What follows is one of the most hauntingly beautiful sequences in animation. Melendez and Schulz discard dialogue almost entirely as Charlie Brown returns to his neighborhood, with no one waiting to greet him, and somberly goes home and climbs into bed. He kicks off one of his shoes, trying to get it to land upright on the floor, but it tips over—yet another failure—and he remains under the covers until Linus arrives to check on him the next afternoon. (Turns out, the kids had a ballgame after school, and they won. This is faithful to the strip: Charlie Brown’s team typically emerged victorious whenever he didn’t play.) Recognizing and understanding his friend’s depression, Linus then utters some of the most true and honest words that anybody who’s ever struggled with self-doubt should know themselves. After describing his friend’s latest failure, he says: “But did you notice something, Charlie Brown? The world didn’t come to an end.”
“The world didn’t come to an end.”
“Most movies are about winning,” Jeff Pidgeon remarked in describing A Boy Named Charlie Brown’s message. “If your heart’s in it, you’ll win. I don’t think it’s a bad idea to introduce the concept of failure to people: You’re not going to succeed at everything you do in life.” [8] Therein lies the brilliance of this movie, and what so tremendously impacted me when I saw it for the first time: it concludes not on a note of forced triumph or of unrelenting despair—but with an inspiring depiction of moving on. Charlie Brown takes Linus’s words to heart and ventures into the world again, jumping over the hopscotch markings on the sidewalk, watching his friends play about the neighborhood, realizing he still has his whole life to prove himself. Ending in this manner, with neither total victory nor total failure for its protagonist, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is perhaps the most noble film I’ve seen on the subject of self-doubt. And as someone who utterly lacked confidence and self-esteem for much of his own childhood, seeing this picture was something of a defining moment; its lesson is one I wish I’d learned earlier.
Of course, A Boy Named Charlie Brown has much to offer aside from its poignant story. Director Melendez and his team utilize the expanded budget to recreate memorable aspects from the comic strip and the half-hour shows, with greater panache than before. Example: the disastrous baseball game toward the beginning, which is rife with spectacular wide shots, movement of the camera, and split-screens showcasing events happening simultaneously in separate parts of the ballfield. (Namely Charlie Brown’s reactions as his teammates continuously fail to catch the ball.) Another highlight is Linus staggering through a dark, shadow-laden New York City in search of his beloved “security blanket.” As indicated, much of the film is heavily pictorial and, in a few instances, allows a break in the main story for extra-narrative interludes where music and visuals take over completely.
Schulz explained in a 1971 interview that he worried a feature-length movie focused solely on the misadventures of kids would become “wearisome”; so he came up with the basic idea of four vignettes before turning over details regarding execution to Melendez’s staff. “I did not attempt in any way to interfere with the animators,” he recalled. “I simply told them […] ‘You go ahead now and use your imagination, because you’re better at this that I am, and […] just let your minds run wild.’” [9] In addition to recycling Snoopy’s fantasy battle with the Red Baron from It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, the film sets animation to John Stafford Smith’s The Star-Spangled Banner and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique, the former accompanied by flashing stripes and stars, the latter a collage of surrealistic illustrations depicting locations where Beethoven lived and worked. Snoopy gets a second interlude of his own: while skating at Rockefeller Center, he imagines himself in a hockey game (with live-action players rotoscoped behind him in the form of dashing, multi-colored silhouettes). Besides the final two sequences, which admittedly run a tad long for their own good, these vignettes function terrifically as set pieces and, despite lack of narrative importance, do not interrupt the picture’s momentum.
Snoopy scores at the Rockefeller Center.
Aiding the visuals is a marvelous score. Main composer Vince Guaraldi returns with several of the beloved tracks he’d conceived for the television specials and writes much of the new instrumental music. Augmenting his jazz are a few original compositions courtesy of John Scott Trotter. “It wasn’t that we thought Vince’s jazz couldn’t carry the movie,” Mendelson recalled, “but we wanted to supplement it with some ‘big screen music.’” [10] For this film, Trotter—who’d arranged, supervised, or conducted Guaraldi’s music for the television specials since 1966—contributed a handful of elaborate tracks (e.g., Linus hallucinating on the bus to New York) in addition to a few gentle ones (the soothing piece that opens the film), not to mention the song, ‘I’ Before ‘E’, for when Charlie Brown’s memorizing the spelling rule that’s always given him trouble.
Three more songs were supplied by Rod McKuen; and in what adds a sense of unity to the soundtrack, all three are carefully adapted into instrumental pieces by Guaraldi. “Vince would call and consult me about his variations on the songs for the background score,” McKuen recalled, “and I thought that was really generous. He didn’t have to do that; he didn’t have to use them as source material at all. But he felt that elaborating on the songs was part of his job.” [11] A non-vocal rendition of McKuen’s Champion Charlie Brown makes for a playful main title theme; and his central song, named after the movie itself, is brilliantly adapted for key scenes regarding the hero’s emotional journey. The score for A Boy Named Charlie Brown earned Guaraldi, Trotter, and McKuen a collective Academy Award nomination for Best Music (Original Song), though the group ultimately lost to The Beatles documentary Let It Be.
Voice acting in Peanuts animation has historically been hit-and-miss, the average cast consisting of a few good performances alongside some less-inspiring ones (a brasher-than-necessary Lucy; a Sally clearly uncomfortable with big words; a Charlie Brown who’s a tad too bland—indeed, such a thing is possible!). But the voicework in A Boy Named Charlie Brown is just shy of impeccable, nearly every character matched to the right voice. Most impressive is thirteen-year-old Peter Robbins in (release-wise) his final outing as Charlie Brown. [12] Robbins had played the character in all of his animated appearances thus far, developing the right tone that mixed determination with an element of doubt; his narrated monologues in this film are particularly moving. Also excellent is Pamelyn Ferdin, still the quintessential Lucy van Pelt for capturing a demanding personality without being overly strident. Supporting roles (Glenn Gilger as Linus; Sally Dryer as Patty; Lynda Mendelson as Frieda; Christopher DeFaria as Pig Pen) are well-cast.
The dramatis personae of A Boy Named Charlie Brown is also appealing in that it features characters destined to become less prominent in animation thereafter (due to Schulz simultaneously finding limited use for them in the strip). It is true that characters such as Shermy, Violet, Frieda, and Patty are not as memorable as, say, Schroeder or Lucy, and that they function primarily as what Schulz called “straight men”: mere responders to their more personality-packed friends. But as someone who’s always considered the ‘60s the best chapter in Peanuts’s fifty-year run, they are essential components in how I picture the world in which Charlie Brown lives; and their presence here adds to what makes this, in my sincere opinion, the consummate representation of Peanuts on the silver screen.
As mentioned at the top, A Boy Named Charlie Brown is a film of tremendous importance to me, in part because of its connection to my favorite comic strip, in part because of its message and the degree to which I can relate. At the risk of sounding sentimental—or “wishy-washy,” to quote Lucy—I am thankful to have this movie in my life, and in fact wish I’d come across it earlier. (Those last few words spoken by Linus might’ve been of immeasurable help during that time where I longed for self-esteem.) And for that reason especially, this gem from 1969 is the animated film that means the most to me, the one dearest to my heart.
References:
Schulz and Melendez recreated this specific gag in their second television special, Charlie Brown’s All Stars! (1966)
When I first discovered Peanuts circa 2009, there were only four movies based on the comic strip: 1969’s A Boy Named Charlie Brown; 1972’s Snoopy Come Home; 1977’s Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown; and 1980’s Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don’t Come Back!!). 2015’s The Peanuts Movie was still some years away.
Solomon, Charles. The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation: Celebrating Fifty Years of Television Specials. San Francisco: Chronicle Books LLC, pp. 28
Bang, Derrick. Liner notes for A Boy Named Charlie Brown soundtrack, Kritzerland Records, 2017
Ibid.
Canby, Vincent. “Screen: Good Old Charlie Brown Finds a Home.” The New York Times, 5 December 1969.
Liner notes for A Boy Named Charlie Brown soundtrack.
Ibid.
According to Pamelyn Ferdin, although A Boy Named Charlie Brown was released after the half-hour television special It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown (1969), voice work on the movie was finished first, making It Was a Short Summer Robbins’s final performance as Charlie Brown.
Towards the end of Adult Mom’s new album, in the middle of exposing the cracks in communication and general messiness that comes in the aftermath of a breakup, singer-songwriter Stevie Knipe sings of how “all of our guilt/ Is collectivized in ill-written iPhone notes.” You can hardly describe Knipe’s lyrics as “ill-written” – that line alone proves otherwise – but the diaristic, confessional nature of their writing means it’s easy to imagine the words first coming to life against that infamous light background, conceived less as a means of self-expression than mere self-preservation: letters to self that gently found their way into a song, or at least immortalized in the form of a tweet. And while the songs themselves are both witty and treated with care, it’s the imperfections that come with this brand of raw honesty that makes them so endearing.
None of these qualities have gone away on Driver, Knipe’s third LP as Adult Mom, which deploys a brighter and more expansive palette without sacrificing the project’s trademark intimacy. If anything, the album’s tasteful, breezy arrangements – whose most immediate reference point is the renewed openness of Waxahatchee’s Saint Cloud – only accentuate the warmth that Adult Mom’s music has exuded ever since 2015’s spare Momentary Lapse of Happily, coating even its most melancholy and uncomfortable sentiments in layers of self-aware irony and candor. The mood of the record might be better conveyedthroughmemes than a formal review, but I find the opening lines of ‘Checking Up’ to be aptly evocative: “Thick snow, I fall down in it slow/ I retreat to its pillow.” Knipe has a way of taking the cold, mundane realities of life and transmuting them into something lighter and almost soothing.
Driver is full of quotable lines, but quoting them doesn’t always reflect the effect they have in context or illustrate Knipe’s knack for poignant storytelling. Perhaps the most memorable one arrives on the album’s centerpiece, ‘Sober’: “The only thing that I’ve done/ This month is drink beer and masturbate, and ignore phone calls from you/ What else am I supposed to do.” But just as the song’s lo-fi, bedroom pop backdrop builds into something clearer and punchier, Knipe’s assured delivery guides the song to its expected yet cathartic conclusion: “Now I don’t even think of you when I am sober.” Part of the reason that line holds such emotional weight also has less to do with its wry humour than how Knipe sets it up a track earlier, depicting a scene where a stranger had given them and a friend a beer as evidence of a time when drinking was less a means of killing time than slowing it down. “I was just trying to get to know you,” they sing, letting the you fly from their mouth like a fond memory.
Knipe’s growth as a songwriter is palpable on Driver, their best and most fully-realized effort to date, and it resonates partly because that yearning for growth has been such a running theme throughout their discography. (“God, I can be so relentless/ But at least I’m not afraid anymore,” they admit on ‘Adam’, throwing in an “I think” for good measure.) But Knipe never alienates any potential new listeners, weaving a thread around seemingly disparate moments that may not add up to a coherent narrative but are tied to a particular place, or more often, the things that lead to it: “On the cusp of the state line/ New England to Westchester/ On the cusp of loving/ And resenting each other.” It’s no wonder driving plays such a recurring role on the album, less so for its obvious connotations than its ability to violently bring back memories. There are musical references ranging from Hole’s ‘Violet’ to ‘I Will Survive’, but Driver glides to its own rhythm. Knipe may not always disclose the full details of their destination, but they’re kind enough to save us a seat.
At just 23, Jess Smyth a.k.a. Biig Piig has already enjoyed a busy life, full of what she happily refers to as “mess.” She had a sociable childhood spent between Ireland, Costa Rica, and London, growing up around, and later working in, the restaurants, pubs, and bars run by her parents. It was following the family’s move to the UK when Smyth was 14 that she first picked up the guitar, and it wasn’t long before she was performing at open mic nights in Battersea and beyond. She found her crowd at college, when she became part of the collective NiNE8, a group of fashion, art, and music-loving teens brought together by artist Lava La Rue. The open-minded creative sessions with NiNE8 led Smyth to settle into her style and to collaborate with the collective’s producers to create her first official tracks. Softly rapping and singing in a mix of Spanish and English, Smyth put her own idiosyncratic spin on neo-soul, mixing hip-hop beats with lo-fi jazzy instrumentals, revealing intimate thoughts in a haze of chilled-out sonics and silky, sultry vocals.
She released her first (wonderfully named) EP, Big Fan of The Sesh, Vol. 1, in 2018, which features one of her biggest songs to date, ‘Perdida’, and has gone on to release two more, getting scooped up by RCA Records somewhere along the way. In 2020, her singles were imbued with a particularly energetic and confident quality, with tracks like ‘Switch’, ‘Don’t Turn Around’, and ‘Feels Right’ garnering widespread acclaim and reeling in new fans across the world. Now, following yet another move (this time to LA), Biig Piigis working hard on her debut album, dropping latest single ‘Cuenta Lo’ while gearing up for what we hope and pray will be an exciting festival-filled summer.
We caught up with Biig Piig for this edition of our Artist Spotlight Q&A series, where we showcase up-and-coming artists and give them a chance to talk about their music.
Something that first led me to your music was actually the name Biig Piig! Was that the intention when you locked in the name?
So initially, it was just a bit of a running joke. It was funny because it was the name of the pizza that me and my friend got after a night out. There wasn’t really much meaning to it, I just liked the way it sounded. And I was like, well, I’ll just do that, because I don’t think I ever wanted to use my name as my music name. But the more that I’ve had it and the more I thought about it – there’s certain meanings to it. I think I found that like, pigs are a lot smarter than they look and it lets me be a bit messy as well. I don’t feel like it pigeonholes me at all. Yeah, I don’t know; it all worked out.
Growing up you lived in Ireland, Spain, and London. What do you love most about each place, and do you feel more attached to any of them?
I feel like the sense of community that’s ingrained in the culture in all three places, really, that’s what I think I got attached to. And that’s what I think is really cool and just really beautiful. I think the way that people communicate and the way that friends and how much community matters in the three of those places that I lived in, really, really stays with me. I feel like I don’t really get attached to places. It’s more so I get attached to people and like emotionally, that’s kind of what I think makes a place rather than the actual place.
What are some of your early memories of listening to music?
There are different stages. I feel like I remember listening to Gabrielle when I was really young. My mum used to love her and it used to make her really happy. That was kind of when I discovered that music could really pull someone out of a bad place. It was like watching her sing that in the car when she was going through something really tough, and I feel like just to watch her kind of, like, light up with Gabrielle’s song ‘Sunshine’ … That was when I think I really understood the power of music. I remember listening to her quite a lot, and then when I was like 13 or whatever, I liked a lot of pop-punk and acoustic music and my taste was all over the shop… A lot of old school R&B. It was like – yeah, it was just a mess. And I don’t feel like there was one specific genre that I loved. I think it was just kind of anything that makes me feel good, or not, like songs that really make me feel… Something. But there’s a few different artists; Ben Harper, Bowling for Soup, Genuine – I used to listen to him a lot. Who else? Gabrielle and Van Morrison was played a lot, and Leonard Cohen.
How have you been during lockdown and how have you passed the time?
Lockdown has been a bit nuts. I moved so many times; it was a really hectic time for me. I was in a really intense relationship that ended during lockdown. We were living together and everything else – that was really intense. Creatively as well, I feel like I went through a period where I couldn’t really write anything and I felt really uninspired. And then after the first lockdown, I started to write a lot more and got really back into the swing of it. It felt so good. I think I’m still trying to process the whole of last year, just because my living situation kept falling apart. So I kept having to move loads and that relationship happened and then now I’m living in LA. I really like it and I’ve got a project that I’m really happy with, so it’s great. But yeah, definitely a very weird time. It almost feels like a dream. I feel like I’m looking back at it with such a hazy view because I don’t feel like time makes any sense. I think last year just feels like a whole… Vortex situation. It’s hard to remember details or anything, it’s nuts. But, passing the time, I watched a lot of really shit TV. I loved Selling Sunset. That really uh [laughs] that really kept me busy for a while. What else? Reading a bit? Reading and drinking, which I’m going to stop doing now. But drinking for the first one took up a lot of my time as well. Um, yeah, I think just staring into the void and days just fleeting… Sorry, I feel like this has taken a dark turn! [laughs] No, it was grand. I feel like I will never take life for granted again, so that’s good. Definitely a learning curve.
Have there been any artists that you’ve been particularly drawn to during this weird period?
Yeah, there were definitely some artists I think that brought through some incredible music last year, Lex Amor being one of them. Her – I don’t know if it’s a tape or an album that you’d call it? – but it’s Government Tropicana. That was a really, really good project that I really enjoyed. Brent Faiyez, Fuck The World, has just been on repeat for the last like however long. I love that project so much. What else? Bel Cobain. Anything she releases, I just love – I think she’s brilliant. Yeah, a lot of the same tunes. I think I even went through a period of just not really listening to music that much. But those are ones I always come back to. And ‘The Adults Are Talking’, that song by The Strokes. That literally lifted me out of such a bad mood. It kind of felt nostalgic to me in a way and I don’t know, it just really got me going [laughs] and so that’s a great tune. I feel like when I listen back to that now I think of the first lockdown and it just made me feel like I could escape a bit in that song.
You’ve worked on music as part of the collective NiNE8 and created other tunes more independently. Do you have a preference for working collaboratively or in a more solitary way?
With the NiNE8 stuff it’s always fun because it’s like, we’re all just hanging out, we can fuck around and like make something cool for the tape or whatever, which is amazing. And then, with my own stuff, I always work with one producer, so they’ll make the instrumental and I like to write everything, like all the melodies and lyrics and stuff. But then sometimes I’ll even take a beat home and write to it on my own. I feel like you don’t really know until you’re in the room how a session is going to go or how the day is gonna go because you can come up with something incredible, or sometimes not so much. But yeah, I really enjoy working with NiNE8 though. I feel like it really gets me out of my head. And it’s just fun, do you know what I mean? But yeah, completely depends on the day, and the mood and what we achieve with it.
What’s your favourite song that you’ve written and why?
I think my fave song that I’ve written… It changes all the time. Like, I really like some of the earlier stuff like ‘Vete’, which I made with Lloyd [Mac Wetha]. It just kind of reminds me of a time where we’re making music in his bedroom and it was super low-key. Listening back to that is really reminiscent and I really enjoyed doing that, and also I like the way that my vocals are mixed and stuff. It was super stripped back and there wasn’t a lot going on, and sometimes I really miss that because I like the intimacy of that and I feel like there’s the kind of soulfulness of it as well. So that’s cool to look back on. And then some of the new stuff that I’ve made, I really love. There are a couple of tracks on this next project that I’m just like, I think I’m experimenting with a sound that I’ve always really admired as well, so that’s cool. I think with that, it’s super minimalist again, but it’s like, some lyrics I’m really proud of, because – I don’t know if it will translate the same way – but for me, it paints the image perfectly of… I don’t know. It feels like I can see the world. It’s like I can see the imagery perfectly with some of the songs that I’ve written for that project, which I think is really cool. It kind of transports you to that world.
Do you have any goals in terms of where you’d like to get to with your music?
I mean, I really want to get to a place where I can produce myself, because I’m interested to see what that would sound like. And even producing for other artists, I think that would be really, really cool. I just need to understand what my style would be from the producing side of things. So that’s definitely a big goal for me. And then otherwise, I want to just make sure that I keep making music that makes me feel good. I feel like I really don’t want to lose the love for music, and I don’t think I will, but I just hope that every time this like feeling of excitement and release, stays and grows with everything that I make, and the things that I make in the future. So that’s kind of it. Yeah [laughs].
And finally, what are you most excited for when lockdown’s over?
I don’t even know at this point, if I’m being honest. Maybe something like just hugging all my friends and having to sleepover. I’m not even bothered about the pub. Like the first time I was like, “Oh can we just go to pub blah, blah,” and now I’m like, I actually couldn’t even be bothered with the pub. I don’t care, I can drink at home [laughs]. I just miss the smell of my friends and just hugging people and having sleepovers and yeah… I just missed all that, so hopefully more of that.
Bernice, the Toronto group led by Robin Dann and her backing band of musicians, craft songs that meet at the crossroads of R&B and pop. Their third full-length album, Eau De Bonjourno, feels like being invited into the studio as all manner of improvisation unfolds, on its own terms and at its own pace. It’s not difficult to imagine other musicians enjoying listening to Bernice: the band allows so much breathing space in their songs that you begin to notice patterns, pick up little notes here and there that you might have missed upon first listen.
Their new album was released by Toronto’s excellent Telephone Explosion Records, home to the likes of Deliluh and Teenanger, but Bernice’s sound doesn’t necessarily fit the prevailing sounds of the city’s current music scene. They sound a little like Crumb without the overt psychedelic themes; all the band’s members have backgrounds in jazz – hence the improvisatory nature of the music – and could be compared to Black Country, New Road if there was more playfulness in their approach.
The first half of Eau De Bonjourno holds the strongest singles. The patient rhythm on ‘Groove Elation’ is interrupted by wondrous spurts of saxophone; the personal ‘It’s Me, Robin’ is a delightful and delicate ode to finding peace with yourself. Dann is possessed of a gracious and flexible voice: she can combine for angelic harmonies on ‘Empty Cup’ and sound suave and seductive on the slinking R&B track ‘Infinite Love’. The way she breathes every word has an almost soothing effect.
The group wrote the album together in an old-school container on Toronto Island, and a sense of wanting to banish disconnection and find something deeper comes through. Dann notes “dogs on the highway” and watches “a beaver eating smooth red bark,” while the swooning ballad ‘Lone Swan’ is about the misunderstood qualities of that graceful bird. ‘Personal Bubble’ was written in late 2019, but its sentiment feels especially relatable in the context of the last year: “You’re not allowed in my personal bubble/ Please step away from my personal bubble,” Dann sighs, something not enough people did in 2020.
The shapeshifting instrumentation begins to dominate as the album drifts slowly to its conclusion. The languorous ‘Your Beautiful House’ begins like a hazy radio transmission dipping in and out before an impactful piano line passes through country twangs and zapping sound effects. ‘We Choose You’ is pure atmospherics, all lo-fi beats that are ever-moving and disjointed. Much of the album is airy and dreamy, and as a result it can often feel too lightweight, too ephemeral. The songs seem to arrive formed for the first time; this is a first take, a first try, you might think. It’s why they sound like straightforward pop songs deconstructed and stripped bare, just playthings for Bernice to explore; and it’s why getting lost in their sound can elicit an almost childlike sense of wonder and curiosity.
