We all know that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, and thanks to twitter I’ve reduced most of my opinions on any release of the past 5 years to some combination of emojis and gifs. For the sake of this blog adventure, let me try to return to words for the new album by Rose Elinor Dougall.
9/10
We all loved The Pipettes, right? You either loved them or just didn’t know about them. Concept pop at its best. Their makeup of a rotating number of wonderfully talented members also meant that, as a fan, you could follow about two dozen solo and side projects, representing an array of different genres and styles. Founding member Julia is part of the often politically charged group The Indelicates, while Gwenno has found a fair bit of recognition for her Welsh-centric music, though personally I still carry a torch for her electro-pop EP “U&I” (unfortunately not available on any streaming services, it seems).
My favourite though has always been Rosay, now known as Rose Elinor Dougall. Post Pipettes she could be found working with Mark Ronson for a while. Her solo stuff, however, had sadly never clicked with me. It all seemed a bit too slow and melancholic, and I was prepared to write off another one before I had even started it. Oh, how wrong I was. Take a listen to the title-track for yourself:
It is just such a lovely album. Her previous style is still in there, but it’s been injected with new life. No longer timid in the vocals without losing any of the dreaminess. Each track drives the album further instead of just dripping along as is unfortunately often the case with dreamy pop music. There are elements of electro pop in All At Once and Closer that are just delightful. Other highlights include Strange Warnings, Poison Ivy, and Take Yourself With You. It rightly topped the Official Record Store Charts while collecting a number of great reviews. I certainly have not been able to listen to much else since discovering it.
Be sure to catch this gem on tour this April:
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