Ana Roxanne - Because of a Flower (Kranky)

WHAT THE COVER LOOKS LIKE:

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WHAT WE SAY:

Open the windows of your mind & let your inner spirit float freely, borne effortlessly by the puffs of New Age endeavour, altruistic electronica, wafts of deep dreaming pop & ambient breezes of Ana Roxanne's serene new LP for Kranky.

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WHAT YOUR EARS SAY:

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WHAT THE RELEASE NOTES SAY:

The sublime songs comprising New York-based musician Ana Roxanne's second record, Because Of A Flower, germinated gradually across five years, inspired by interwoven notions of gender identity, beauty, and cruelty. She describes her process as beginning with “a drone element and a mood,” then intuiting melody, syllables, and lyrics incrementally, like sacred shapes materializing from mist.

The experience of identifying as intersex informs the album on levels both sonic and thematic, from spoken word texts borrowed from tonal harmony textbooks to cinematic dialogue samples and castrati aria allusions. It's an appropriately interstitial vision of ambient songcraft, a chemistry of wisps and whispers, sanctuary and sorrow, conjured through a fragile balance of voice, bass, space, and texture.

Despite a background studying at the prestigious Mills College in Oakland, Roxanne's music rarely feels conceptual, instead radiating an immediate and emotive aura, rooted in the present tense of her personal journey. She speaks of the flower in the title as a body, singular and sunlit, as many petals as thorns, an enigma beholden only to itself. But whether taken as surface or subtext, Because is a transfixing document of a rare artist in the spring of their ascension.