albums i've absolutely fallen in love with in 2023 (part 1)
aka my favorite albums of 2023 (some that came out this year, some that didn't)
1) Arlo Parks- My Soft Machine
Between the sheets of rhododendron and sky
I cast my mind across the day you said you'd always be there
I pushed a curl of hair away from your eye
And said "It's sweet of you to lie"
I know that's it's been a while since
Came over
It's hard to be unguarded
I know I come across cold
Dropping out like a stone
When I'm crumblin', but I owe you the truth
Wanna I melt right into you
Melt right into you
Let you be my glue
Melt right into you, you
I'm so easily wounded
Glasses of pineapple juice out on the Heath
My head in your lap
You offer me space, wild bees and sweat
I'm scared if I tell you, you'll think of me as weak
I don't wanna be that friend that's always in pain
So I bottle it up, it hurts when I do it
We stare at the sun
(From Ghost)
Songs To Check Out
☆ Impurities
☆ I'm Sorry
2) Leith Ross- To Learn
When you say "leave,"
I run
You said "Forgive me"
I said "You did nothing wrong"
'Cause when you lie
Then I lie on your back
While you sleep to the sound of a gun
And I know that you know what I mean
So at what point of you knowing
Are you just controlling me?
If I'd do anything for you, that means
You know you could do anything to me
You love to watch me dance
Reshaping 'til you like me again
But the eggshells all break and thin ice always caves
And you just shake your head
(From To Me)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ To Learn
☆ Guts
3) MAITA- I Just Want To Be Wild For You
Holding my cold hands, cover up my mouth again
Rising from the bed, I wish to pull you up I leave instead
The carpets are new but the sheets are older than me and you
I bought extra pillows, extra towels, picked a room to house two
I tried to tend you like a garden
Water and a soft hand
Peel you like some fruit I cannot trust
Before I put you on my tongue
Holding my tongue as it holds everything and nothing steady
You want to kiss me 'fore you leave
I leave my hands on my knees
I’m not ready
Let's take us 'round the block
The sun is bright and shining
Oh, the timing
Read to me the morning news
I’ll sleep somewhere where you can't find me
I tried to tend you like a garden
Warm you in your soft bed
But you will burn a free man
And I'll become a freezer
Won't you ask me what is wrong
And press me when I lie
I know just how hard you try
(From You Sure Can Kill A Sunday, Part II)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Loneliness
☆ Ex- Wife
4) Nonbinary Girlfriend- Big And Kind
No face monster
Don't know who I am
When I sleep at night
No face monster
Don't know who I am
When you sleep at night
(...)
Could've seen some pretty girls
And I wanna be like them
Instead of who I am
I'll take your face
And I'll
Glue it on mine
And we'll
We can pretend that
You are not talking to yourself
I'm nothing when I'll go to sleep
At night
I'm nothing when I'll go to sleep
At night
(...)
When I'll see you
You'll look like you know what to do
When I'll see you
I don't wanna be me anymore
I'll take your face
And I'll glue it on mine
And we'll
We can pretend that
You are not talking to yourself
(From No Face; transcribed it myself so pardon for any mistakes)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Body
☆ Tender Hand
5) Macie Stewart- Mouth Full of Glass
One day I’ll find a house where we could live
Shut your eyes, quiet night in weeping hands
Tree of life with ripened vines that bear no fruit
Turn away, feeding fire, and wasting heat
Honeycomb, soft unknowing gritted teeth
Canopy, covered island, warm and sweet
Heaving sigh, wine and rye, that rings in tune
Gone away, nervous laughter, fitted sheet
One day I’ll find a house where we could live
(From Where We'll Live)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Finally
☆ Golden (For Mark)
6) Black Belt Eagle Scout- At The Party With My Brown Friends
How you look at me
In the brightness of your room
Imagine
The lightness of my fingers on your face
Run through your hair
Across your neck
Light breaks across your room
I never knew I’d like half colored hair so much
But in the light
I never knew I’d like half colored hair so much
But in the light
I never knew I’d like half colored hair so much
But in the light
I never knew I’d like half colored hair so much
How you look at me
In the brightness of your room
Imagine
What it’s like to wake up every day
Here in the bay
A time untouched
Light breaks across your room
(...)
But I knew I’d like you
I knew I’d like you
I knew I’d like you
So I didn’t care
Cos I care for you
(From Half Colored Hair)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Real Lovin'
☆ You're Me And I'm You
7) Thao And The Get Down Stay Down- A Man Alive
Decades to decide I need decision
Decades to decide I will never be satisfied
With how I have been living
I must find and capture an astonished man
Hold him till he knows he is forgiven
You don't look for me
But I will look for you
Without a wish to see
Anybody new
You don't look for me
How I will look for you
Without a wish to see
Anybody new
(...)
I wake
So worried, worried
Yet I won't
Hurry, hurry
Fast asleep
As only the careless can
How far gone, how far flown
How far flung could I be
When all along, all along
You have belonged to me
How far gone, how far flown
How far flung could I be
When all along, all along
You have belonged to me
Decades to decide I need decision
I must find and capture an astonished man
Hold him till he knows he is forgiven
(From Astonished Man)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Nobody Dies
☆ Give Me Peace
8) Elisapie- The Ballad of the Runaway Girl
When I'm longing for you
All my dreams come alive
Take me down take me down south
Take me down
Feel the warmth
Feel my blood circling
Feel the warmth
Feel my blood circling
Don't ever make me blue
Don't ever sacrifice
Baby let's keep it pure
Pure
Asiumanniqi naniinniqi
My sorrows turned me in
Then you came
Then you came
You came for me
(...)
(From Don't Make Me Blue)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Call Of The Moose
☆ Arnaq
9) Crosslegged- Another Blue
Hey, baby, you know to see me
And you've got something to complete me
And only in the battlefield you get over
I got you on my mind, embedded your taste
Oh, you rectify my life, only the right, only right
I swear you need me, okay
But sincerely, embed, I nearly got him
And even when I ask about your name
And even when I go, I sound insane
I ride on or I die with you, it's in my blood
Don't want to, to go out lately
And you've got something to complete me
(...)
Still in bed, see, I'm not contained yet
But I'm a novice, I think you'll regret, so
I get up
(From Only In The)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Heaven Is Real
☆ Automatic
10) Shana Cleveland- Manzanita
Faces in the firelight
A blooming room inside the night
Do you love me like I do you?
You are just a little light
Exploding on all sides
Do you love me like I do you?
My babe, 'til our time is through
I'll wait for you
For you
You are just a little light
Exploding on all sides
Do you love me like I do you?
And I am just a little late
To where I'm going everyday
But I always arrive with you
My babe, 'til our time is through
I'll wait for you
For you
For you
For you
(From Faces In The Firelight)
Songs To Check Out:
☆ Walking Through Morning Dew
☆ Gold Tower
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Shana Cleveland Live Show Review: 4/27, Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago
BY JORDAN MAINZER
Thursday night at Old Town School of Folk Music, Shana Cleveland and her band brought Manzanita (Hardly Art) to life. As promised, Luke Bergman and Will Sprott’s respective pedal steel and synth playing provided a “thick eeriness.” They contrasted the tactility of Cleveland’s plucked guitars, whether Cleveland’s picking was by itself introducing a song or playing an interlude, or hovering atop the textural, foggy hum of the backing band. Drummer Geneva Harrison provided thumping fills on “Faces in the Firelight”, pounding might on “Walking Trough Morning Dew”, and subtle brushwork almost everywhere. Her shaking percussion on songs like “Mystic Mine” emulated the creepy naturalism that inspires so much of Manzanita. At the center and barely in front was Cleveland’s effortless voice, sandwiched in timbre among the instruments, telling the stories that contextualize the songs’ instrumental vignettes.
Though the lines between La Luz and Cleveland’s solo work are, according to Cleveland herself, certainly blurring a bit, she has very much refined a solo artistic voice. A song such as Night of the Worm Moon’s country ballad “I’ll Never Know” was purportedly originally written for La Luz but “didn’t make sense” for the band; you can hear its siblings in the “Paint It Black” guitars of “Night of the Worm Moon” and Spaghetti Western aesthetic of “Face of the Sun”. Manzanita’s songs have doubled down on Cleveland’s pseudo cinematic vibe, from the whistling pedal steel of “Mystic Mine” to Richard Brautigan tribute “Mayonnaise”. When performing the latter, as she sang the line, “I’ll write a thousand songs before I’m done,” Cleveland mimicked a slit throat, the type of darkly humorous and strange mood that oozes from Manzanita just as much as the instruments themselves. If those thousand songs continue to reflect Cleveland’s ever-shifting perspectives and sense of self, we’re in for a treat, sonic and literary.
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I was really impressed by Shana Cleveland’s first single off of her upcoming album, “Manzanita”. “Faces in the Fireflight” is incredibly lush and airy, lofting the listener up to angelic heights with both the string arrangements, soft vocals, and subdued drums. Everything is used sparingly and only used to hit emotional resonance when needed. The strings will all the sudden leap up at you and wash you away inside the song. “Faces in the Fireflight” sounds like an innovative, avant-garde track made circa, say, 1966. It takes you to a place that seems like the past but a place completely new at the same time. Something familiar but foreign—otherworldly almost. In other words, it’s fresh! Give it a listen above.
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Shana Cleveland Album Review: Manzanita
(Hardly Art)
BY JORDAN MAINZER
On “Mystic Mine”, the whistling psychedelic folk tune from her third album Manzanita, Shana Cleveland sings, “I feel so relieved to be back in the country,” the last four words delivered in harmony with electric piano and whizzing synths. The singer-songwriter’s music has often occupied this reflective mood, whether embedded in the garage pop of La Luz or the abstract pastoral nature of her solo records. Yet, as they say, this time, it’s personal. The songs on Manzanita were written during the sort of major life changes many songwriters metaphorically describe as a move: relocating to rural California, and becoming pregnant with and giving birth to her first child. In a sense, many aspects of the album are literal, from the album title’s namesake California-endemic evergreen tree to references to the exploited natural areas and their resulting ghost towns. Moreover, Cleveland grounds you in the audible scrapes and squeaks of her close-miked fingerpicked guitar, getting you lost in the earthly sounds of fingers hitting strings at different angles. Still, Manzanita is a self-described “supernatural love album,” rich, lush, and as unmistakably strange as the country itself.
Many of the songs on Manzanita see Cleveland finding commonality between her own pregnancy and childbirth and her surroundings. Metaphysical opener “The Ghost” was inspired by her realization that pregnancy is a “psychedelic experience;” atop a Mellotron and acoustic guitar sway, she sings, “When you wake up in the night, I’m lying next to you / Can I come through?” She could be singing to her child in utero, or her life partner Will Sprott, who plays keyboards, dulcimer, glockenspiel, harpsichord, and synth on the record. “Faces in the Firelight” is addressed to both of them, its genesis a moment where Cleveland was watching Sprott tend to a burn pile in the distance and thinking he looked like the image of her ultrasound. Lilting guitars, crisp, relaxed drums, and golden hour synths soundtrack the multi-faceted question that buoys Manzanita: “Do you love me like I do you?” Her pause before “you” suggests Cleveland also recognizes the importance of self-love, as someone about to undergo a major life change, needing to balance her needs with her devotion to her family. And the shaky “Babe” revels in the strangeness of it all. When Cleveland sings, “Look at that beautiful babe,” the song breaks from its shuffle and atonally tiptoes to an off-kilter melody, calling back to the idea that being pregnant is psychedelic, indeed.
Yet, Manzanita is also an album of contrasts, Cleveland admitting that she’s imperfect, and so is the the living, breathing country. On “Gold Tower”, accompanied by Olie Eshleman’s melancholy pedal steel, she feels, and wants to give only. “If I let you down, bury me in the ground,” she sings, continuing, “I want to be yours totally.” Meanwhile, the presence fire does not always symbolize the ember of possibility. The minute-and-a-half spoken word track “Ten Hour Drive Through West Coast Disaster”, with its descriptions of “Cattle farms out of horror films” and “flames and fire planes” gives Cleveland doubts as a person and a parent. “Will you find a way to love this world?” she asks. The beauty of her fingerpicked guitar on “Quick Winter Sun” and “Sheriff of the Salton Sea”, recalling the likes of Jansch and Basho, is subsumed by the cloud of instrumentation beneath. Final track “Walking Through Morning Dew” describes spring bloom as not a picturesque view to fawn over but a time when the bugs come inside. “The wasps are crawling in our rooms,” Cleveland sings over instrumentation that sounds like your ear’s up to their hive. It’s a fitting end to an album that peels back the layers of life and travel experiences that some will tell you are nothing but idyllic. Manzanita knows better.
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