claire rousay, Zander Raymond - can’t we have both [Review]

About Claire Rousay

Claire Rousay has been swerving across musical lanes since her church-rooted piano upbringing was derailed for years of experimental percussive improvisation in low-lit backrooms, before this multi-instrumentalist, finder and creator of sounds and accomplished producer seemingly settled on a more considered, unusually autobiographical, 'emo ambient' mission. For now.

Her latest transition to the quietly experimental, highly listenable ambient and ambient-adjacent scene in 2020 has been met with widespread acclaim, and she hasn't stopped running, releasing a couple of albums a year, even more singles and having teamed up with all sorts of other notable, more thoughtful musical outsiders including TSMM fave More Eaze, Martyna Baster recently, Circuit des Yeux and now Zander Raymond. She's a hard-grafting, singular-sounding artist who fully deserves her relatively rapid rise up the alt-music ladder.

About Zander Raymond

Chicago-based, synth-focussed multi-instrumentalist Zander Raymond is an even newer kid on the ambient block than Rousay, and another prodigious talent who is unusually making (sound) waves in his mid-twenties, which bodes well for the next few decades. He's also a fellow improviser with a focus on the gentle music arts, and there's often a blissful, new age of new age vibe running through much of his found sound infused music, and where his abstract compositions lack recognisable compositional shape and form, they always have pleasing flow and vibe, rather like his design work.

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  Claire Rousay

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  Zander Raymond

Review

With so much in common, the pair teaming up is quite the prospect, and I'm happy to report that early indications from this first single to tease January 2027's collaborative album – Something Good, albeit done at a digitally enabled distance, due out at the end of January – are promising to great.

Both artists jockey for the piano stool on this track, so I'm not sure who gets the track rolling, but needless to say the familiar instrument - treated fairly but not respectfully - is accompanied by distant machine noise and even some harmonica, the noise snippets combining in a pleasantly discordant manner to fashion an uneasy bed for Rousay's, possibly for the first time, foray into vocals. Whether it's nerves or artistic choice, her voice is mercilessly fed through some effects to robotic ends, which in fact are the perfect form in which to muse on the ideas of trends and inter-generational pop culture. A hyped-up ticking clock then ushers in a mid-track crescendo – guitars, harmonica, field recordings and accordion rushing to join the sound sculpture, as an almost submerged piano struggles, but just manages to provide a melodic sweetener to the noisy artiness. The sounds then gradually and quite orderly, considering, peel away one by one, allowing Rousay to finish her thoughts for the day, signing off with a rather melancholic 'I don't know if I can love you anymore.'

Apparently there is only one other vocal track on the album, which is something of a shame as Rousay obviously has some thoughts worth hearing, but more important is that there is serious synergy between this pair of musical misfits. Something Good will be coming to a record store near you on January 29th.

If art pop is your thing, then head over to the less electronic, more recognisably musical deviance of Hot Springs. She's about to leap out of the Manchester shadows and is one to keep an eye on.

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Playlist Companion

Find the pair in the Ambient Pop Playlist.