Fun fact: If you subscribe to Thrill Jockey's Substack, you sometimes get to hear new music before anyone else. Last week the label quietly announced something good, a new album-length collaboration from LA "emo ambient" hero claire rousay and multi-disciplinary artist zander raymond, whose music shares rousay's interest in found sound and painfully gorgeous drone. (Check out last year's no one notices the fly.) They even provided an advance stream of lead single "can't we have both." This email arrived at a time when I was scrambling to finish some other work, and then it passed me by. So I'm happy that today the official album announcement has arrived.
Thrill Jockey will release something good in January. The album blurs the edges between abstract sound explorations and pop structure, a mixture demonstrated on "can't we have both." The track is shimmering and shapeless, yet rousay gives it form with her return to lead vocals, providing lyrics that lend further emotional weight to an achingly beautiful piece of music. "Feeling washed up in the used CD store," she begins. "It’s a burden, it’s a triumph/ My industry evaporates and it doesn’t need me anymore." Against a gradually intensifying backdrop, she builds to a tough conclusion: "I don't know if I belong here anymore."
It's a prolific time for rousay, who just released her on holding EP last week and dropped an album with Martyna Basta shortly before that. But when is it not a prolific time for rousay? Hear "can't we have both" below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "'driving'"
02 "free monday"
03 "can’t we have both"
04 "blue shirt always"
05 "somewhat habitable"
06 "colors and feelings"
07 "boat rack"
08 "some good news"
09 "major freedom"
something good is out 1/29 on Thrill Jockey. Pre-order it here.